Weapon XH
by Tjin
Summary: Xander is experimented on by an Insane Doctor.
1. Chapter 1

Sound came in a combination of garbled words and phrases with the rare sentences that made little or no sense thrown in to keep him on his toes.

After what seemed like centuries the sentences lengthened to admit full conversations.

"There is little cause for concern general the process first devised by Doctor Essex is keeping his healing factor under control while the process is completed." One voice was saying as Xander regulated his breathing so as not to give his consciousness away.

"Essex was a maniac and a traitor to the cause, now tell me why this project is going to work where Striker's Weapon X failed." A gruff voice said in the same manner it probably used to describe a dog pile the voice had just stepped in.

"Weapon X was destined to failure from the start. The Adamantium, while nearly indestructible increased the subject's weight to nearly nine hundred pounds while setting off every metal detector he ever walked through and still leaving him vulnerable to curtain… attacks." The first voice responded as Xander ran the voice through his memory to place where he had heard the female voice before.

"You're talking about how Magnus tossed him around like a rag doll or the fact it seems to be more then a little susceptible to electricity." The Gruff voice said with more then a hint of sarcasm.

With a smirk Xander could actually hear the first voice counter the gruff ones challenge. "Both actually. Leaving a weapon vulnerable to things like that is exactly the kind of insanity that Striker would allow just to see the 'Aberrations' put up a fight before they died while still keeping the weapon weak enough to control through the constant beating it went through."

"And this one's different… How?"

"This one is different because we used a special latticework of metal instead of coating the bones entirely, and the metal we used is a very special type called Trinium. As strong as Adamantium, as light as Aluminum and is completely immune to the effects of magnetism."

"And what about mind control? What exactly are we supposed to do if one of those… things takes our weapon over?"

"Telepaths and psychics hold no threat to the weapon due to the Arium latticework we lined the inside of the weapons skull, you may remember we found out about Arium while studying the Aberration Magneto's helmet, Arium has been found to be impervious to telepathic and psychic signals, making the weapon immune to mind control." The first voice said with a measure of pride in it's voice.

"It sounds almost perfect… what's the catch."

After a lengthy pause the first voice finally responded. "We can't control it either..." it said in an almost whisper that Xander had to strain to hear.

"WHAT!" the second voice shouted with a volume that would have assured Xander would have heard it even if had still been unconscious.

"Yet general, we can't control it yet, every control chip we insert into its neural pathways burns up within an hour." The first voice said in a slightly embarrassed tone.

After a heavy pause that Xander gathered was the General thinking the matter through he finally responded.

"Could this be some type of secondary mutation?"

"No, it fails to spike any of the X-gene sensors. We don't know how to explain it yet but we are constantly updating the design and we feel confident we should have a permanent model available for it in six month's time."

"We don't HAVE Six month's time Doctor, the mutant threat is rising and we need a response NOW."

Xander heard the doctor sigh before she continued. "General please try to understand, this is not some simple 'Plug & Play' device where you just slap it in wherever it fits and hope for the best, if we mess this up the BEST we can hope for is the subjects neural pathways frying, leaving it in a permanent vegetative state for the rest of it's life. Failing that we would be lucky for it to just scramble the long term memory paths leaving it with a type of amnesia, much like Weapon X and those are the BEST scenarios." The doctor said with a note of finality that stopped the conversation for a time as the other speaker ran through what could possibly happen if this where to go wrong.

Xander was just getting ready to make a break for it when a new voice broke into the room. "Doctor the Cardio monitor."

And snapped his eyes open in time to see a woman in a lab coat stick a long needle into his arm. As the world swam away Xander caught the last bits of the conversation.

"Keep working on your weapon Doctor Rosenberg, but I'm going to approve the Sentinel Project… just in case…"

The rest swam away as Xander's mind locked on the betrayal by Willow's mom.

--


	2. Chapter 2

As the two walked down the hall they continued to discuss there primary project.

"I noticed from your notes you used a serrated edge on this weapons blade, care to explain why?" the general asked as he nodded to one of the passing security staff.

"Unlike Weapon X this Weapon is not designed to go up against military targets, this Weapon was designed for extermination of the genetic aberrations, including the wayward Weapon X." the scientist explained as if talking about a recent dry spell. "One of the most common genetic deviants we have managed to isolate is the advanced healing factor in one form or another, the serrated edge while decreasing it's effectiveness on metal or armored targets makes cuts made against flesh over sixty five times more difficult to heal."

Any continuation to the conversation was put on hold as a muffled 'Thump' heralded the fading of the lights before the dull red glow of emergency lighting kicked in.

The two stood in shock for several seconds before the loudspeaker blared out confirmation of the impossible.

"WE ARE UNDER ATTACK; I REPEAT WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! SECURITY TO ALL LEVELS, SECURITY TO ALL…." The loudspeaker squealed once and went silent as the invading troops swarmed into the control room.

The two looked at each other for a long moment before the walls around them erupted as strategically placed sonic charges crumbled them to dust allowing admittance to the armed and armored troops.

In moments the base and all its defenders where neutralized.

--

Willow stared at the screen in shock.

Again, a secure facility belonging to an as yet unknown group was broken up today in the small California town of Sunnydale, we don't have any hard evidence at this time, but it seems to be dedicated to the torture of and experimentation on mutants.

The leaders of this base seem to be the ex-general John Greene and psychologist Sheila Rosenberg. Dr. Rosenberg is seen here being escorted into a military transport. Earlier this as yet unknown young man was removed under tight security, his destination was not disclosed.

The rest faded into a blur as Willow stared in shock at the picture of her mother in handcuffs and Xander being transported on a medical gurney.

The same Xander that had been missing and presumed dead for the last three months. Three months in which her mother had known exactly where he was, three months where her mother was doing God only knew what to her lifelong friend.

Willow needed answers. Finally blinking through the tears she stood and headed for her computer.

--

"Yeah what." The voice growled over the line.

The man making the call steadied himself before attempting to explain this before the man on the other side decided to take matters into his own hands. /Or claws./ he corrected himself before responding.

"They made another Weapon." He said simply as he heard the breathing stop on the other end of the line.

"Where are they." The voice said, a few octaves lower and more deadly than before.

"They're being dealt with, the problem isn't that they tried, it's that they succeeded. We have a young boy that's going to be going through hell… we need to know if you're going to be able to help him or if we should try to muddle through this ourselves."

After several minutes of thought the man on the other end finally made his decision. "Bring him to Xavier's, I'll do what I can."

Moving to hang up the phone the man was stopped by one growled word.

"Fury."

Lifting the receiver to his ear again he listened carefully as one of the few survivors of the Weapon program slowly composed himself.

"Make sure they pay for this… or I swear that I will."

--

The first thing Xander noticed upon waking up was the pain.

He had once heard his grandfather complain about a 'pain in his bones' and if it felt anything like this he could understand how he would finally just stop fighting and give up.

It wasn't until the warm numbing bliss fell over him that he realized he had been screaming. As the drug took effect and removed the pain it also had the effect of wrapping his head in a warm blanket of fuzz. Managing to open one eye he was able to semi focus on the redhead standing over him. He tried desperately to say something, but the drugs slowly pulled him away to painless oblivion.

--


	3. Chapter 3

Xander hissed as the pain slowly forced the last shreds of the blissful fog away leaving him to hurt again.

Inhaling through his nose he cataloged all the different smells that assaulted him. Metal, plastic, disinfectant and the smell of old blood and chemicals mingled together to form the image of a medical lab.

He was just wondering how strong the restraints that held him were when a hiss signaled the entrance of new smells. Blood, cigar smoke, whiskey and something… wild.

Snapping his eyes open Xander looked in the direction of the hiss and snarled.

--

"So if this 'Trinium' is so strong why didn't they use it on Logan?" Scott asked as he looked at the three dimensional scan of the young man down the hall.

"Probably because they didn't have enough." Hank McCoy said with a nod towards the image of Logan's bones and then the young man's. "Where Logan's Adamantium coating used twelve percent of the U.S.' surplus I estimate this young man's bone 'weave' used almost eighty percent of the world's TOTAL supply of Trinium… I don't know how they managed to get a hold of all of it for this project, but it's an amazing feat." Hank said as he studied the pages of printout he held before looking back up. "Reading over Doctor Rosenberg's notes I'm inclined to believe they intended him to be an Anti-Mutant assassin, Defenses against Magnetic and Psychic attacks in particular." He said with a pointed look at Professor Xavier.

"Will we be able to…" Professor Xavier's question was interrupted as an eight hundred pound growling projectile crashed through the briefing room door followed by a one hundred and eighty pound snarling torpedo.

--

Xander slammed into the growling form as he felt three sharp pains on the palm of his hand and a slightly stronger pain from his wrist before his hand impacted the target ripping huge gashes in its flesh.

His claws nearly had the targets throat when he was picked up and slammed into the wall by a brilliant red beam of light.

Snarling in rage he rolled from the impact and faced the new targets.

Six new targets where moving to stand next to his primary target as another retreated in a wheeled vehicle of some sort.

Dropping him from the threat status he did a quick view of his new targets.

Besides the wild one there was a tall male in glasses, a Female with red hair, a male with blue fur covering his entire body, a dark female with white hair, a tall male that was just shifting his skin to some type of metal and a short male that was turning into some type of moving ice.

They were trying to say something, he realized as he felt a tingle in the back of his mind. Shaking his head to rid himself of the feeling he snarled at the redhead that was trying to get in his brain. With a roar Xander lunged for the redhead, wanting only to get his claws on her long enough to make her stop.

--

Willow Rosenberg stared in shock as her mother explained what she had done to her best friend as if she was talking about an interesting type of beetle she had found.

"Mom, how could you, he was my best friend." She finally managed to get out as Sheila looked at her confused.

"Oh honey." She whispered before touching the dividing glass carefully. "He was only a Mutant."

Willow recoiled from her mother in disgust, the words were said with such absolute conviction that it made everything she had done better. She stared at the woman that had given birth to her before she finally managed to stand and turn towards the exit, then finally found her voice. "And Grandpa was just a Jew." She said before she walked out of the prison.

She didn't want anything more to do with that part of her DNA equation.


	4. Chapter 4

Xander lunged at the redhead, intent on stopping her attack when a heavy scent of brimstone warned him of another problem.

As the blue furred arms wrapped around his chest, Xander swung his legs up and grinned when both feet connected with the mutants face forcing the blue threat to let go.

Turning the kick into a flip, he had just managed to land when a freight train masquerading as a man slammed into his side and simply powered him into the wall again.

Growling as the metal armored man continued his pressure, Xander ignored the flexing of his ribs as the large mutant's strength warred with his trinium reinforced skeleton.

Throwing all his strength into a single push, he grinned as he managed to get a blade up and raked the metal man's side. As he fell back in pain Xander turned in search of the next threat.

He had barely managed to pull himself out of the hole in the wall when a blast of painful red energy slammed him back into place. With a growl the feral mutant decided he was tired of playing games.

--

ACCESS DENIED!

With a growl Willow taped some more keys before snarling a curse at the bright red letters that mocked her attempts to find her friend.

Considering it a moment, she tapped another series of commands before resisting the urge to hit the machine. "Access denied my big toe, you listen to me buster, I'm going to find out where he is if I have to rip you apart bit by byte." She growled before the computer gave her the digital equivalent of a raspberry and the entire machine shut down.

Two words glowed on the screen in contempt as the power faded from the system as SHIELD counter hackers proved they were better then her.

ACCESS DENIED!

--

"Sir!"

The one eyed man scowled at the young buck that interrupted his lunch. Waiting a moment longer than needed to make the man sweat, he finally swallowed the bite he had in his mouth and nodded. "What is it 'lieutenant?'" he said with as much venom as he could in the last word.

Swallowing past the fear of the living legend before him, Lieutenant Riley Finn was again pleased that Project 'Initiative' had been mothballed //I'd rather work for this hardass then that psycho Walsh.// he thought as he set a report on the table before snapping back to attention.

"Sir, we have reports of a hacking attempt that bypassed the first three levels of security before Counter Security managed to send a shutdown command to the attackers computer. It seems they were searching for any information on the Sunnydale base attack and specifically the Weapon X subject that was retrieved from the base." He said before shutting his mouth firmly and staring straight ahead as the commander of SHIELD looked the file over and ignored the young serviceman completely.

After reading over the file, the WWII legend closed the folder and leaned back in his chair with a scowl at the man before him. After a minute of watching the sweat bead up on the man's brow, Nick Fury nodded more to himself than anyone else. "Prepare a reconnaissance team and send them to Sunnydale with orders to watch and report any happenings in relation to the Rosenberg's, Harris' or Summers' as reported by Doctor Rosenberg." He growled before nodding at the man and grinning slightly as the youngster fled the room in a more controlled manner than most.


	5. Chapter 5

Xander groaned as the light worked its way past his eyelids. "What hit me.?" He grumbled, as he sat up slowly from wherever he was lying.

"That would be a young mutant by the name of Rogue." A male voice said, as Xander tried to focus on where he was.

"I… remember." Xander started as the memories and images came seeping back into his mind. "Willow's mom… did something to me, pain. Why won't the pain stop?" Xander shuddered as the last of the drugs were eaten by his healing factor.

"I wish there was some way I could help you in this Alexander, but you have been shielded from even the lightest telepathic touch." The wheelchair bound man said sadly as Xander was assaulted by a multitude of smells as his senses sharpened from their artificial draining.

"The only one here with any idea on how to help you is staying away to avoid a repeat of your last meeting." The man said as Xander rummaged through his pain filled memories for the subject of there conversation.

"Cigar smoke and whiskey." Xander said as the memory of the clawed threat brought a snarl to his lips.

"Yes, Logan said you probably responded to his involvement with the weapon X project, the same project that put the Adamantium into Logan gave you your Trinium weave."

Snarling, Xander tried to force the rage back into place as the desire to kill worked its way into his consciousness.

The rage was almost too much to control when a feeling of warmth slowly made its way through his body.

"Sleep Alexander, I must see to Rogue now." The older man whispered as the specially designed drugs took effect and forced the enraged mutant into slumber.

Moving his chair from the room, Charles Xavier tried to steel himself for the coming pain of helping Marie through her torment as she relived the pain and horror inflicted on their newest member.

Opening the door, he stared sadly at the screaming young woman as she tried to sink non existent claws into him.

Staring at the mentally broken student, Xavier tried to calm his emotions.

Sometimes he wondered if Eric might have been right.

--

Xander sat still as he woke again, the room was empty this time and all the gear and machinery were turned off.

Looking around, he finally noticed a pair of grey sweat pants and a grey T-shirt on a tray nearby.

Considering the pain he was in, for a moment Xander decided that 'while it hadn't lessened any' the pain was at the very least bearable.

Slipping carefully off the sterile medical bed he was on, Xander shifted out of the humiliating hospital gown and pulled on the clothes.

He had just finished when the door hissed open, startling Xander.

His slight surprise was shifted to pain as he tensed and three blades popped out of the back of his hands while a third longer blade shot out of his wrist.

Dropping to the floor Xander stared horrified at the blades as he screamed in pain and shock.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry, are you okay?"

Running out of breath, Xander blinked through the tears and watched as the blades slowly sank back into his flesh.

"Wow…"

Xander almost flinched again as the person that had first startled him broke through his thoughts. Turning his glare towards the intruder he was mildly surprised to see an Asian girl about his age staring at his hands.

After a moment more of staring, she finally blinked and looked at Xander. "Sorry about that, I heard there was someone else like Wolverine and had to see for myself, I'm Jubilee."

Blinking again, Xander finally grunted and flexed his hands carefully to make sure nothing pointy was going to pop out. "Xander, I'd offer to shake, but considering…" He trailed off as the dark haired beauty smiled.

"Yeah I get that, Logan had the same problem a time or two, so I think I'll just settle for a nice wave from way over here." She joked as Xander chuckled lightly before slowly focusing on the blades and watching as they extended again.

The Asian/American mutant watched as the newest member of Xavier's little wild bunch played with his knives for several minutes before letting out a tired sigh. "Come on…"

She trailed off as the blades erupted from her fellow mutants hands again. She hadn't realized how engrossed he had been in what he was doing.

"I'll show you around the mansion." She finished as Xander growled and willed the blades back. As he finally removed the weapons from sight she smiled at his irritated glare. "No surprise parties, I'm guessing." She tried and accepted his snort of laughter as at least some improvement.

Considering it a moment, Xander finally stood up slowly and followed the overly perky teen from the room.

--

Riley Finn looked around the small town he had just narrowly avoided being pulled into as he tried to ignore the shudder of some of the intention reports that psychopath Walsh had intended for him and his men.

Straightening his shirt slightly, he frowned and messed it up again, if he didn't want his entire appearance to scream military he had to remember to be a little more sloppy.

Turning to the others that had accompanied him, Riley nodded before the three men and one woman that made up his team split up in a manner that was professional, but blended in with everyone else in the Sunnydale Airport.

That still scared him more than he liked to admit of course. 'His' team, Fury had given the young man more than enough rope to hang himself with on this mission.

Every member of his team was older and far more experienced than himself, Riley was the green Louie that gave idiotic orders until he managed to get someone killed.

Shaking off the terror, Riley settled himself before heading towards the designated meeting place and tried to ignore the urge to settle his 'Uniform' into a more military manner.

As he left the airport, only a few people noticed the unassuming young man in lime green sweatpants and a matching windbreaker proudly proclaiming him part of the 'Sunnydale Health, and International Exercise League Depot.'

Fury seemed to find the acronym funnier then Finn did.

Pushing aside his anger at his superior officer, Riley headed to the recently bought store that would house their 'Gym' that he and his team would use as a cover story.

This may be one of the biggest jokes in covert intelligence history, but Riley Finn intended to see to it that it was carried out to the last superior ordered chuckle.

--

(A/N) Come on… don't you think Fury would get a laugh out of the Acronym?

Please read and review, the more reviews I get the more I write the more I write the more reviews I get… funny how that works out isn't it?

Also for TTH I'm assuming your Fic-For-All Challenge meant Jubilee, if not sorry for the misunderstanding.

And for those that asked, no this is not going to be a Xander/Rogue fic, I considered it but after her pulling Xander's memories she's going to be a bit… uneasy around him.

Hope you all enjoyed my writing please Review.

-Tjin


	6. Chapter 6

"Ms. Rosenberg?"

Sheila Rosenberg looked at the two people as they stood up from the table and held there hands out to her in greeting.

"I am Mr. Plath, this is Mr. Glees. We are representatives of Wolfram and Hart's special defense team, and we hear you've had some trouble recently with attaining the services of any… reputable representation," One of the men said as he smiled at the orange clad scientist.

--

(Warlock) Are you crazy Fire? Those servers are NO! Zones.

(Goblin115) Yeah, you only hack them if you want 2 get busted.

(FireTree) Please, I need to get into them. They have info on one of my friends.

(Warlock) If they have your friend then I suggest you look 4 a nother.

(Specter) I HATE 2 4GREE WIT W4R BUT NO 1 WILL HEP U.

-Specter- has logged off the Chat.

-Goblin115- has logged off the Chat.

(Warlock) Sorry FT not even the Script Kiddies will help you with this one.

-Warlock- has logged off the Chat.

Willow glared at the screen as her last chance at help disappeared in a puff of digital dust, not that she blamed any of them. If anyone had approached her looking for help getting into those servers just a few weeks earlier she would have tried to talk them out of it herself before turning them down.

Turning off her computer, Willow moved over to her bed and carefully hugged the stuffed snoopy doll Xander had won for her at the fair so many years before.

Silently, Willow wished her life would return to the way it was before.

--

Xander Harris laughed, as the blue furred, 'not a demon' Kurt told a story from one of his earlier adventures with the Munich Circus.

"So to get back at Mammoth for de 'Nair' incident, she dyed all his performance clothes bright pink." The German mutant said as everyone laughed at the mental image of the seven foot tall 'Strong man' in a pair of bright pink tights.

For a moment, Xander could almost believe he was back to being the 'normal' one of the group.

That thought only lasted a few moments before Kurt looked over at the Sunnydale native, "Alexander, the professor wants you to report to the Danger Room as soon as you're done." The young German said as the gathered students groaned at being reminded of their training.

Xander, for his part, agreed wholeheartedly. While usually most of the students loved using their powers, it was a proven fact that being forced to do anything was guaranteed to suck the fun out of it.

Swallowing the last bite of his food, Xander forced a smile at the friends he had made in the past three weeks. "Well, looks like I get to miss the pop quiz Miss Monroe had planned for today… do you think they'll ever figure out that surprises don't really work when dealing with telepathic students?" he asked carefully as the gathered students chuckled at the not so surprise test that was coming.

Dropping his tray off at the counter, Xander headed for the underground training center.

Behind him a recovering Rogue watched as he left before shuddering as the boy's memories assaulted her mind once more.

--

"The purpose of this exercise is escape and evasion, you are being attacked by a numerically superior force, and you're NOT to slaughter them this time." The professor said sternly as he reminded Xander of his first adventure in the Danger Room. "You are to break contact and flee, do not allow yourself to be captured or killed. Points will be deducted for deaths and excessive injury to your opponents. The escape zone is outside the city limits or rendezvous with the X-men."

Sighing as the wheelchair bound telepath went over the rules, Xander finally nodded. "Yeah, beat feet not the bad guys and try not to break a leg if it belongs to someone else. Got it." The teen said simply as the advanced training room shimmered and Xander found himself in a city swarming with humans.

That in and of itself would not be that much of a problem if the majority weren't wearing ugly black armbands and shouting slurs.

As the mob moved towards him, Xander grinned as he let his claws jump out with an audible snap.

When the crowd paused in its mob behavior, Xander let the grin grow to nearly demonic proportions as the blood lust cried within him. "Alright boys, lets play."

Above him Charles Xavier sighed as the young mutant ripped into the humans with a bloody fury that would put both Sabertooth and Wolverine to shame.

--

Scott Summers glared at the kid from behind his glasses before he turned to the report screen.

"While you got points for assisting nineteen mutants to escape and the protection of several human lives, along with your 'eventual' escape from the city," The leader of the X-men teams said as he shook his head at the five hours and fifteen minutes it had taken for the boy to grow tired of the blood shed and finally get away. "You also caused several MILLION dollars worth of property damage, and placed an estimated fifteen hundred humans in the hospital with wounds ranging from minor to extreme and in one case irreversible." He said as he turned back to the kid that was currently smirking at the memory of taking both thumbs from the F.O.H leader's hands. "Did you really have to make him eat them?" Cyclops asked as the kid simply shrugged.

"I don't think you've figured this out yet, but I really hate 'hate groups' and anyone that's a part of them." Xander said before frowning. "I think that makes me an Oxymoron," He muttered before looking back at the dark haired adult.

Scott sighed as he tried to explain again that despite the intentions behind it, they didn't kill or maim humans.

And once again, Xander tuned him out as he imagined what he would do once he sunk his claws into a certain scientist he used to wish was his mother.

--

Riley Finn, Agent of SHIELD, blinked as a goddess walked into his cover store and approached him.

"Hi, sorry about this, but you don't happen to have a heavy impact training dummy do you?" the blond asked as Riley forced himself to work through his feelings and smile at her.

"Of course, we sell both the 'Numb John' series and basic 'Jack' Series." He said as he started the canned sell speech.

While he really didn't need to sell anything, it would be mighty suspicious if the salespeople didn't at least make an effort.

And while the rest of the team was keeping an eye on the targets, Riley was left sitting at the base trying not to look to stupid.

As he talked about the pros and cons of each system, Buffy Summers tried to ignore the slightly giddy feeling in her stomach when the cute sales clerk smiled at her.

--

(A/N) Okay… that was relatively painless, here's hoping I get lots of reviews to help keep this going (Coin of the realm and all that.)

Hmmm…. Seems I need to introduce the SHIELD team, guess I know what's going to be in the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

Having returned earlier in the day, Logan tried to ignore the feeling of two lasers burning their way into the side of his head as he sat outside the danger room.

Xander Harris glared at the first successful test of the project that had created him.

He knew, intellectually, that the man had little to do with what had happened to him, but that did little to dull the feeling of rage Xander felt every time he saw the man.

"It won't make you feel any better."

Blinking, he drew his mind back to the real world. "What?"Xander asked, confused, before the mutant nodded at his clenched fists. Looking down, Xander took a deep breath to calm himself.

Logan watched as the boy retracted his claws slowly back under his flesh. The three on the knuckles he could understand but he was still confused about the extra foot long blade from his wrist.

"Sorry. It's not you sir." Xander half lied as the older man snorted.

"Bull kid. You mean to say it's not 'who' I am, but 'what' I am." Logan said before taking it a step further. "More likely, it's 'what' I represent."

Flinching at the words, Xander hung his head in shame before nodding.

"That's what I thought, don't worry about it kid, happens to me all the time." The older mutant said as Xander looked back up at him.

"Really? When?" Xander asked as the man simply shrugged.

"Every time I look in a mirror." He confessed just as the door they were waiting outside of opened to admit Bobby Drake and Kurt Wagner.

Standing up from his seat, Xander looked at the open door as the Danger Room reset itself for its newest victims. "How come we got stuck together?" Xander asked and continued when he noticed the instructor's quizzical look. "They know I can barely stand to look at you without the urge to carve my name in your face. Why add more stress to that by putting us into a combat environment?"

Considering his answer a moment, Logan finally shrugged. "Probably because the more you dislike someone, the greater the odds are it will come up in a critical situation, better to know if you're capable of working through it and achieving the objective here, rather than when it really counts." The Canadian mutant said before heading for the entrance.

Nodding at the answer, Xander followed him towards the room. "Ooh, and here I thought it was because I'd have trouble killing you if I snapped again." The Sunnydale native said as he waited for the door to cycle.

"Well there is that."

--

In the Observation room, Charles Xavier watched with Aurora and Scott to see how the two 'wild' mutants would handle a surprise rescue mission.

"Which mission did you give them?" Scott asked curiously as the two students that had just been through a mission joined the four teachers to watch.

"Random, I didn't want Logan to have an unfair advantage." The headmaster of the school said as he watched the room turn into a wooded glade.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Bobby said as Kurt simply nodded.

--

Xander felt his senses sharpen as he tried to find the enemy he knew was near. He could smell him, hear him. Feel him.

For a moment, he wondered if this was how Buffy felt when a vampire was near before shaking the thought off. Now wasn't the time for that.

"Aww… so the sawed off little runt finally decided to pay his ol'pal Victor a visit."

Turning towards the sound, Xander blinked as a six and a half foot tall yellow sasquatch stepped out from behind a tree.

"What's wrong Wolvie… you never visit anymore… did I hurt your feelings?" the massive man taunted as Logan extended his claws.

"Not a chance, Creed. I just got bored with you." Logan responded.

As the two bantered, Xander tried to move silently around the obvious enemy.

Unfortunately, Xander wasn't as quiet as he should have been as the massive man turned his gaze towards him with a smirk. "What's this? The punk brought a dance partner already?" the man said before striking a wounded pose for a second and then letting it drop with an insane grin. "Guess it's a good thing I brought one of my own." Sabertooth mocked before looking up.

Following his opponent's gaze, Xander felt his vision darken as he finally noticed the bound form trapped above him.

He didn't understand how he had missed it for so long and in truth he really didn't care, the yellow trench coat was very familiar to him.

--

In the observation room the gathered mutants had a single unifying thought that was voiced by the blue furred German.

"Oh Shit." Kurt whispered as he looked down at the hate filled eyes of his friend.

--

The holographic forms created by the danger room were completely artificial, no real thoughts or feelings other than those recorded and predicted by the alien computer system.

They were the perfect training tool, unable to feel fear, or joy. Hope or despair. Anger or happiness. They simply existed to follow directions from the computer. Therefore, when the rippling snarl from the younger ofthe two opponents echoed around the false glade, the hologram was unable to feel the proper amount of fear at the primal sound.

Logan, on the other hand, knew exactly what it meant.

With a snarl of his own, Wolverine rushed to try and get in between the towering mutant and Xander. He didn't make it.

--

Buffy hummed happily as she double checked her hair in the mirror. She had a date with the cute sales clerk from the sporting goods shop tonight and she really hoped nothing hellmouthy would put a stop to that.

--

Riley Finn slammed his head against the wall as he tried to accept what had happened. "You mean to tell me that I have a date with one of our objectives?" he hissed at the five man team he had been working with when they snickered at his predicament.

Only after their mirth died slightly did the sergeant finally cut the young lieutenant some slack. "It's a perfect setup sir. Get some pictures of the inside of her purse, if at all possible, then we make up some duplicates with trackers and mics and our job gets a lot easier." The man said as Riley returned to banging his head against the wall.

--

(A/N) hope you all enjoy this.

-Tjin


	8. Chapter 8

Xander blinked owlishly as the ceiling came slowly into focus. "What happened," he groaned as his body started sending warnings that he was more damaged then he originally thought.

Resisting the urge to simply curl up and die Xander, forced himself to sit up with another series of groans.

"Careful kid," Logan said from his position on the far side of the room as he moved to help Xander sit up.

"What hit me?" Xander mumbled as he held his head carefully lest it fall off and roll across the floor.

"You don't remember?" Logan asked as Xander shook his head before groaning as the world started to spin.

"I remember the test, we were in the woods with Sabertooth and…" he trailed off as the last bits of memory snapped into place.

"Yeah, the danger room threw in a hostage to spice things up. Wanna tell me why you flew into a berserker rage when you saw Jubes?" Logan asked as he chewed on his cigar.

"Not really. The last thing I remember was seeing Jubilee strung up like that, after that everything is a blur," Xander explained before looking up at the older man. "I didn't hurt anyone did I?"

Snorting, Logan patted the kid on his shoulder before moving around the bed. "Naw kid, I managed to get ya stopped before anyone else got involved," the Canadian said before crushing the cigar out in one of the nearby bedpans as he headed for the door. "Get some sleep, your friends will be down to see ya soon enough."

As the door slid shut Xander slowly lowered himself back onto the bed. He doubted he could sleep, but he had been told that simply resting would help his healing factor.

Within minutes, the California born mutant was sound asleep.

--

Logan leaned against the wall carefully as he held his side were the boy had gotten a solid strike in. While his healing factor was working on the larger wounds from his confrontation with Xander, the smaller, less critical wounds had been patched up in the old fashioned way.

Reaching behind, Logan traced the lingering scar that had almost severed his spine before straightening up against the pain.

While he understood better than most how dangerous a true berserker was, he was more than a little surprised at the damage the boy had managed to inflict before he had taken him down.

Taking a moment to replay the fight, Logan finally smiled as he walked towards his room to rest.

At least now he knew his healing factor was better than the kid's.

--

Buffy pranced into the library because her date had gone off flawlessly the night before. She and Riley had gone out to eat at one of Sunnydale's few nice restaurants before they had gone dancing and it had ended on an up note as he walked her home.

Well almost, she had made sure to follow him back to his house after he had dropped her off.

Smiling at the memory, Buffy let the smile drop as she finally noticed her oldest Sunnydale friend sitting at the computer with a frown on her face.

"Willow, any news?" She asked and sighed at the fierce headshake the redhead gave as an answer.

Moving over, Buffy hugged her friend as Willow burst into tears again over the loss of her friend.

--

Riley Finn let his head drop to the table top as he sighed in exhaustion.

"How was the 'date' boss?"

Looking up from the fascinating grain patterns of the table, Riley spared a glare for the soldier before letting his head hit the table again.

"Full report, we went to eat and then dancing before I escorted her home after successfully taking pictures of her purse. She then shadowed me back to the safehouse before going on an active patrol of the surrounding graveyards for the next four hours." Riley said before fighting against a yawn and shaking his head to clear it before looking back up. "She successfully engaged seven hostiles and dispensed with them, average combat time for one on one conflict is five point oh seven seconds," Riley said as his team blinked in shock.

With the aid of some of the most advanced technology on the planet, his team combined could just barely equal that.

"Mutant?" one questioned before Riley shook his head tiredly.

"X-gene scan came back negative, I think…" Riley trailed off before shrugging. "I think were dealing with a confirmed 'Slayer' presence."

Around the table the men and women looked at each other before turning back to him. "Sir, if this is confirmed…" the man trailed off as he left the implications open.

"I know, confirmed Slayer sightings with all the active hostiles leads me to believe this is an active Hellmouth," Riley said before picking up the report. "I've already filled out the report and requested a full background brief for the town."

Silence reigned over the table before the sergeant spoke up. "I sure as hell hope you're wrong sir."

--

"What the hell do you mean overturned," Nick Fury asked in a cold voice as he glared at the man standing across from him.

"As I said sir, reports state that the lawfirm of Wolfram and Hart have taken up the case and somehow got it overturned, Mrs. Rosenberg is scheduled for release today at three."

Fury counted silently to ten before taking a deep breath and pulling his cigar out of his mouth. "Then listen to me real close, you get that psychotic bitch back in her cell NOW, and I want a full investigation of that lawfirm."

"Y-yes sir, but…" the man looked decidedly unhappy before continuing. "Wolfram and hart has also started a suit against Xavier's school for gifted children under the espionage protection act, they're claiming that Mr. Harris has stolen confidential information and patented metalworking secrets."

Fury stared at the man in shock before slowly crushing out the cigar, "Are you telling me that after kidnapping, cutting open and experimenting on a living American citizen these fucks want to sue for control of him?"

"Unfortunately there is a precedent set under the government's own suit against Captain America for the use of the formula."

"Rogers Volunteered for that shit, this kid was stolen out of his home and cut open while he was still kicking," Fury snarled before taking a deep breath and wishing for a terrorist he could rip into, "Listen to me good now, I want every lawyer we have on the payroll to get to work on this. It will be a cold day in hell before I let shit like this happen without raising a damn stink about it."

As the man fled his room, Fury turned towards his computer and glared as the name 'Wolfram and Hart' went up in yellow letters as a possible terrorist organization.

Glaring at the name, Fury finally picked up the phone and ordered the number for the governor's office. He'd be damned before he let that bitch go free.


	9. Chapter 9

"Sir"

"Sir"

Holland Manners looked up at the new intern that had taken over for Michael after his disappearance just a few days earlier. "Yes, Samuel?" Holland asked pleasantly as he ignored the memory of Michael screaming in pain as he was devoured.

"Sir, we're getting reports of some heavy strikes against our secondary systems, the 'specialists' believe we may be under investigation, so far we don't know who from."

"Well, that might complicate a few things," Holland said before thinking on the matter for several seconds. "Get me a report of every new client and case recently won, let see if there are any clues in there."

"Yes sir," the young man said before fleeing.

Holland watched him go carefully before shrugging, he seemed more capable then his predecessor, hopefully there wouldn't be a need to feed him to anyone for quite some time.

--

"This is a bad idea, Chuck," Logan growled as he watched several of the teens rush about in preparation for a weekend camping trip.

"I understand your concerns Logan, but the men coming to speak with me are not to be trusted, I would rather have their target be gone before they arrive," Charles said as he watched the young California born mutant get dragged along behind Jubilee. "He would be suspicious if it was only him, so sending the others out with him will give us a reason to get him out of harm's way."

"Yeah, and sending him to Canada puts him far enough out to not hurt very many should he snap," the part time X-man said before grinning at the professor. "Why do you think I stay out there so much?"

--

Xander hated buses, always had, always would. Buses were crowded, noisy, stank of too many people in not enough space, the seats were uncomfortable and the heavy jerking always made him car sick.

Glaring out the window, Xander felt 'Her' sit next to him with a bounce as she laughed at something Kurt had been telling her.

"Smile."

Looking over at Jubilee, Xander stared at her in confusion.

"You're scowling. The young ones are getting scared," She explained before repeating her command, "So smile."

Looking around, he finally noticed the younger mutants in the front looking over their seats at him carefully.

Smiling lightly, Xander let it drop into a frown as they shrieked and ducked back behind their seats. Sighing in defeat, he slumped into the hard bench he was sharing with one of the few people that weren't terrified of him as she tried to cheer him up, but the fact was… he missed Willow.

(Flashback.)

Xander stared at the phone he was holding as he tried to steady the shaking in his hands, five-five-five, three-seven eight…

He froze at the last number, as he had dozens of times before. With a tired sigh, Xander hung up the phone before turning off the light and dropping off into a fitful sleep.

--

John Plath sat calmly as he faced the crippled man sitting behind the desk. "Mr. Xavier, we are representing Ms. Rosenberg in a criminal suit for possession of classified and confidential materials. We would like to avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness, perhaps you could convince Mr. Harris to come with use of his own volition? We would prefer to keep him intact to preserve Ms Rosenberg's investment, though if he is unwilling, we may be required to repossess the aforementioned materials from him."

Charles Xavier stared across at the man in silence for several seconds before responding, "Mr. Plath, I have heard of your firm, and their reputation within certain 'circles.' They have a 'black' mark from most reputable firms and I can guarantee that should you press me on this, I will be a 'thorn' in your side for along time to come," The Professor explained before steepling his hands in front of him. "In fact I doubt I have the… 'heart' to say this any nicer, so I suppose I'll just 'ram' it down your throat… I am a 'wolf' in sheep's clothing, so please understand me when I say, if ANYTHING happens to ANY of my students, I will be contacting the senior partners concerning this breach of contract."

Throughout the conversation, Plath had been getting paler by the moment as the old man insinuated things before dropping the final bombshell. Swallowing heavily, the lawyer took a moment to force the shudder out of his voice before leaning forward carefully. "What contract would that be… exactly?" He asked, feeling sick at the prospect of having blundered into a situation that involved the senior partners.

Leaning back in his chair, Charles Xavier smiled coldly as he stared at the man, he had truthfully been expecting someone more serious than this. "I'll let you discover that for yourself, Mr. Plath. Good day." He said excusing the man who stared at him in shock before rising and turning towards the door. "Oh and Mr. Plath," The professor said, stopping the man from leaving. "I will be looking into this case involving Ms. Rosenberg and should I discover anything… suspicious concerning her miraculous release, I can assure you my lawyers will be contacting you."

As the man fled, Charles Xavier waited until he was well away before starting his own investigation. He had dealt with Wolfram and Hart once long ago and had truly believed the law firm had understood then that it was in their best interest to leave him and his friends alone. Of course he did not have Eric around to help anymore, but he didn't doubt that should it come to blows, his X-men would account for themselves.

Taking a moment to consider his options, Professor Xavier picked up the phone and dialed a number hidden behind layers of mental shielding. It had barely rung the first time before a gravely voice picked up on the other end. **"**Landau, Luckman & Lake, whose calling?"

--

Logan sighed as he finally stepped off the bus that had trapped him with twenty five teenagers for the four hours he had needed to drive up into Canada and find somewhere suitably remote.

"Hey, do you guys hear 'Dueling Banjo's' out there?" Bobby Drake asked as most of the kids looked outside at the sprawling wilderness that surrounded them.

Growling at the poor joke, Logan made a mental note to scare the walking ice maker at least once during their stay.

"Come on, move it." Xander growled as he forced his way towards the front of the bus. "We have the power to take on entire armies, I doubt a couple hillbilly hicks should be a big concern." Xander complained before he got out of the bus and gave a full body shudder. "I've seen the world literally minutes from being sucked into a hell dimension, and I can quite honestly say, that bus ride is the closest I've ever been to hell on earth." Xander complained as Logan simply snorted.

"Could be worse kid, just imagine going back after four days with no showers." Logan said playfully before laughing at the kid's glare.

"You're the Devil, you know that right?" Xander declared before moving off to set up his tent.

--

Riley Finn looked over the report he had received earlier in confusion. The death rate was beyond compare, as were the missing people reports. After everything was said and done, over a thousand people went missing, or died each year.

"This doesn't make any since, even with the Hellmouth's ability to cloud people's perceptions this had to be noticed by the local government at the least," And since there wasn't a task force on site or even a single report for SHIELD to look into, that left one option. "Someone's covering this up," He whispered before looking around carefully and packing everything up.

He needed a secure line to look into this further.

--

Willow Rosenberg smiled as Buffy left her at her house and headed home She knew the Slayer needed to get her homework done before she could talk to Riley and head out on patrol.

Sighing as she thought of her own school work, Willow turned towards the door and went inside. "Dad, I'm home." She said knowing her father tried to stay near the door at around this time. She needed stability during this stressful time after all.

"Welcome home Willow."

Blinking at the voice, Willow turned in shock as Sheila Rosenberg stood in the living room with a smile.


	10. Chapter 10

John Plath stared at the piece of parchment sealed with the names of the senior partners as it spelled out an agreement between Charles Xavier, Eric Lehnsherr and Wolfram and Hart, agreeing to an absolute 'Hands Off' policy between the two, the Mutants under the direct control of Xavier and Lehnsherr would avoid any and all WR&H situations that didn't directly involve them and in return the law firm would never take a case opposing the mutants.

Swallowing heavily the junior partner set the paper down on his desk and resisted the urge to cry, he had lied, cheated and killed his way into his current position and he would be damned if he would let all that get flushed due to one mistake.

Blinking, Plath picked up the phone and dialed his personal secretary as a terrifying idea struck him, "Alice, Glees said he was handling the Harris situation while I dealt with Xavier; do you know what he had planned?" He asked and felt his stomach knot up as his personal spy reported the younger man had 'requisitioned' two squads of retrieval agents from the general pool before leaving earlier.

Leaning forward onto his desk, Plath whispered to avoid triggering the multiple bugs and scrying wards his competitors had in his office, "Listen to me very closely, Alice. I want you to take five teams and a jet, contact the seekers in special services and find out where Glees is and get there as fast as you can. Stop him by any, and I mean ANY, means necessary,"he hissed and swallowed as the ex-MI Agent confirmed the order before hanging up.

Leaning back in his chair, John Plath silently prayed to any being willing to aid him in getting out of this alive. Sitting back up, he made a note on his daily planner to purchase a cow for sacrifice before he headed home tonight.

--

Riley double checked his report as he resisted the urge to yawn, he had been up all night trying to find as much information as he could on the local situation and his findings had been… disturbing.

Flagging the message for priority clearance, he pressed the send button, and blinked as the power for the entire building shut off. A hiss from behind him sent him spinning off his seat and into the floor. The young soldier cursed as a bolt of electrical energy slammed into his seat and blew a hole the size of a softball through where he had been sitting.

Pulling his sidearm out, Riley rolled around and lined the sights up on the hissing figure that was already conjuring more power to finish what he had started. Squeezing the trigger twice, Riley was relieved as the specially modified ammo penetrated the being before exploding in a rather gruesome manner; the follow up shot assured a maximum probability that his attacker would not be getting back up.

Forcing himself to his feet Riley Finn checked the corpse and noticed an interesting ring on the being's finger before looking over and cursing at the pile of melted plastic and metal that had at one time been a state of the art computer.

Pocketing the ring, Finn holstered his pistol and evacuated the building; he had to find the rest of the team and warn them.

--

Xander crept out of the tent as he tried to resist the urge to strangle the young German mutant within. It wasn't that he disliked the young man, but the blue furred mutant really should have warned him that his snoring would drown out a cement mixer full of glass. For a moment he wondered if it was possibly I secondary mutation before shrugging it off and moving through the small camp towards the water cooler.

He had almost made it to his destination when a beep caught his attention and Xander dropped to the ground as he finally noticed Logan leaning against a tree watching the woods.

Flipping open the communicator, Logan inhaled a deep breath of his cigar and exhaled making sure it drifted away from the camp, "Yeah Cyc, what's up?" he asked as he ignored the glare directed at him. Well he guessed it was a glare, it was hard to tell behind the visor Summers always wore.

"The professor wanted to warn you about…" the team leader of the X-men got before the communicator hissed with static and went dead.

Tossing the new paperweight, Logan dropped to a crouch as a soft whisper of bullets chewed up the tree he had been leaning against; behind him he heard a snarling scream of pain as someone failed to avoid the weapons fire.

Resisting the urge to simply charge the weapons, Logan ran at an oblique angle to, hopefully, draw the fire away from the camp and the kids that we're crawling out of their tents at the scream.

He was perhaps a dozen yards from the attackers when a screaming form impacted the two shooters and dragged them to the ground in a flurry of claws.

Ignoring the desire to watch the kid work, Logan shifted his attention when other fire fights broke out around the camp as their attackers started to face off against the students.

He resisted the urge to growl as the students ignored the more lethal tactics in favor of simply stopping the attackers, it wasn't that he disagreed with the sentiment in general, he didn't want any of these kids to become what he was, what Harris had been turned into.

But the fact was these men were playing for keeps and he didn't want these children handicapped by believing it was wrong to resort to a permanent option when faced with opponents that had no such compunction.

Diving under a burst of silenced shots, the feral mutant rolled up and drove his claws into the man's chest before ripping out to the side. Spinning, he slashed the partner through the neck before shoving his claw into the man's heart from the side.

As he dropped, Logan noticed something odd. Spinning around he listened to the yells and shouts of the young mutants as they fought, their powers each had a distinct sound as they were used in defense, yet from their attackers there was nothing. Even when they were killed, the soldiers remained disturbingly silent.

Looking around the clearing he smiled as Kurt teleported between the last two and slammed their heads together, ending the fight.

'PaTING'

Memories rushed back as the metallic sound cut through the night as one last attacker stood with a scream and pulled his arm back in a classic pitch.

Rushing the man, Logan leapt over the two closest students as the arm came forward. He felt the world slow down as the deadly sphere left the man's hand and he watched as three claws burst through the man's chest, the arm detaching from the body as Alexander attacked. Ignoring the dead man, Logan shifted his attention to the grenade the amateur had thrown, inwardly cursing at what was to come. He snagged the small orb out of the air and curled his body around it as he rolled as far out of camp as his momentum would carry him.

Fortunately the concussion knocked him out before the explosion shredded his body,

but it was sure going to hurt when he woke up.

--

(A/N) Sorry it took so long, my computer died and I've been trying to get it back.

I hope you all enjoy.

-Tjin


	11. Chapter 11

Xander stumbled out of the woods as he tried to reign in his current habit of spitting and snarling, unfortunately his attackers had left a bad taste in his mouth and he found it difficult to quit thanks to his enhanced senses.

Stepping into the clearing, Xander shook his head while he tried to ignore the screaming from the other students as he looked around at the carnage left over from the attack. Thankfully most of the students seemed more scared than injured and the older mutants where busy trying to get everyone calmed down when they caught sight of him and started screaming again, looking down at his bullet riddled and blood stained clothes Xander really couldn't blame them.

"HEY TAZ, QUIT SCARING THE KIDS AND GO HELP KITTY AND JUBILEE FIND PROFESSOR LOGAN" Bobby yelled across the clearing from where he was helping to stop the bleeding of a young mutant that had been grazed by a bullet. Growling at the ice mutant, Xander shrugged out of his bloody over shirt and stomped off into the woods, it wasn't that he didn't agree with Iceman, it just hurt that the kids considered him the monster in this situation.

Taking a deep breath through his nose Xander snorted at the overpowering scents of gunpowder, blood, fear and death that permeated the surrounding area. They would have to do something about the bodies or scavengers would get too close during the night, maybe a layer of ice would conceal the scent enough, he wondered as he shifted through the woods in the darkness.

Due to the scents, Xander literally stumbled over the still form of the professor he had been searching for. Looking him over, Xander shuddered at the massive amounts of damage the body had sustained. He hesitated a moment before shoving his claws into the man's heart and twisting leaving a gaping hole in the older mutants chest before shoving a stake in to take his claws place, perhaps a bit morbid but he really didn't want to deal with someone like Wolverine waking up as he carved shrapnel out of his flesh. Given his history he would probably react badly in such an event.

With a grunt Xander lifted the heavy mutant onto his shoulders and turned back towards camp, he needed some light to make sure he got everything out, and to make sure he didn't carve out anything that might be considered important.

With a sigh, he wondered if anyone else was having as bad a night as this.

--

Riley Finn was having a very bad night, he decided as he dove around a corner as a half dozen spikes slashed the bricks leaving a series of interesting cuts that the locals would have to find an explanation for tomorrow. For a fraction of a second the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent wondered what they would come up with before he shoved himself away from cover and fired a trio of rounds at the snarling porcupine man that was currently chasing him through the closed and empty commercial section of Sunnydale.

The large form was faster than he anticipated and it spun away from his attack and faded into the night. He wasn't naive enough to think it was gone, it had pulled this exact same hit and run tactic twice before. Dropping the empty magazine, he slid a fresh one into place and racked the slide, he knew the thing was getting him to waste his bullets, the problem was he didn't have much choice. Either he wasted the ammo and kept it at a distance, or he let it close where it's speed and needle sharp quills would put him at a severe disadvantage.

Turning, the young soldier sprinted down the street towards the safe house, the other members of his team should already be there and the combined firepower of the team would help put the quillman down for the count. Spinning around the corner, Riley flinched at the scrape of several dozen quills sinking into the brick wall. Ignoring the urge to return fire, Riley took a deep breath and continued down the street.

He was three blocks from the safe house when he literally slammed into the small form of Buffy Summers. The training ingrained in every 'SHIELD' agent proved itself as he managed to spin with the throw the short blonde made and thus only scrape up his elbows and knees slightly as Buffy gasped in shock.

"Ooh my god Riley, are you okay?" Buffy gushed as she rushed towards the downed store clerk.

Looking up at her from the ground Riley groaned in pain before freezing at the sight of the Porcupine man atop a nearby building.

Idly he wondered if anyone was having as bad a night as him.

--

Willow Rosenberg was crying as she sat alone on the bus stop bench, a small collection of items beside her as she clutched the ticket in her hand. There had been screaming, and items had been thrown, and finally the young redhead had packed a small bag and fled the house her mother had returned to.

She had tried Buffy's only to find the house locked up tight, Joyce had left for some art conference in San Diego, Dawn was spending time with her father at some summit in LA, Buffy was obviously out hunting vampires, she felt bad about abandoning Buffy like this. But she would not, could not return to that house.

Sniffling slightly Willow rubbed her eyes as she tried to compose herself slightly, the last thing she needed was some vampire eating her as she sat alone in her own deep blue funk.

"Hey Red,"

Willow gave a short shriek at the voice as she spun in the direction and glared at Faith as the dark haired slayer stepped out of the shadows with a half apologetic grin.

"Sorry didn't mean to startle you like that," Faith said as she stepped around and lounged on the hard bench beside Willow.

Snorting Willow looked at the new slayer "So you meant to startle me in a different way?" Willow snarked as she thought of what Xander would do in such a situation. "Do you want me to pretend as you try again or do we adlib from here?"

"Nhaa, I'll try again later," Faith said with a smirk as she stretched some kinks out of her back and readjusted to a more comfortable position on the hard bench and looked over at the redhead "So, where you running to?" She asked seriously as Willow tightened her grip on the ticket in hand before the redhead slumped in defeat.

"I-I don't know," She whispered as she stared blankly ahead "Everything's just falling apart right now, Xander's gone, my mom did such horrible things to him and then the government just swooped in and… he's gone, I can't find any trace of him and then mom got out of jail on a technicality, I-I just can't stay there after what she did." Willow whispered as she tried not to cry again.

Faith stared at the young woman beside her before letting out a sigh, "You know running isn't going to help, right?" She asked carefully. She didn't want to be pushy, so at the redheads nod she finally reached over and laid a hand on Willow's shoulder "If you need to, you can always crash with me," she offered and smiled at the look Willow gave her before shrugging "Tried the running away thing once myself, didn't work too well and I might as well save a friend from the same mistake," as she helped her friend to her feet and gathered her few items up.

"Besides I want to see Xander's brain melt when he hears we've been sleeping together," She joked and smiled at the chocked squeak from Willow.

Life was good sometimes.

--

(A/N) Sorry it took so long, School is time consuming, as is looking for work.


	12. Chapter 12

Xander looked up at the shocked gasp from the entrance to the tent and sighed at the sight of the young mutant looking at him in terror, not that he actually blamed the kid, he was currently a bloody mess with his arms elbow deep inside one of the professors, looking at the kid for a second Xander finally shrugged and went back to work on getting all the pieces of shrapnel out of the other feral mutant.

He didn't doubt that the older man's healing ability would flush the metal out, the problem he had quickly decided was the bodies chosen manner in 'Flushing' foreign objects, and while the old adage of chewing nails and pissing barbed wire was humorous in context Xander didn't want to be around the mutant when he actually started passing the metal shards through his urine tract.

He doubted it would put the short man in anything resembling a good mood.

"You're going to miss some," a quiet voice said as Xander finally looked up at his audience the young girl was staring into the gaping wound of Logan's guts with an intense gaze, after a moment's pause Xander took motioned for her closer. "Can you help him? Can you get all of the metal out?" he asked carefully as she stepped closer.

After gazing into the slowly healing wound she shook her head "Not all of it, he wouldn't like it if I took all of it out, but I can get the new stuff out…" She trailed off as she took a step back "But momma told me to never make the metal dance, she said it was wrong to make it dance" the girl whispered softly as she hugged herself tightly at a memory.

Stepping forward Xander knelt in front of her and caught her gaze "What's your name?" he asked and barely managed to catch the whisper before smiling "Well Casey, Mister Logan is going to hurt a lot if you can't help, I won't make you do anything you don't want, but I'm trying to help mister Logan here and I think you could help him more than me, so do you wanna help?" he asked and sighed at the young girl nod. "Thank you Casey, I'm sure Logan will be very thankful for your help as well." He said seriously before turning back to help the young girl remove the metal shards from the professor.

--

Buffy stared at the young man she had been crushing on the last week as he lay on the ground, the strange uniform and pistol a stark contrast from the easygoing sales assistant she had dated the day before, her reverie was broken as Riley shouted and raised the deadly looking pistol towards her, spinning away from the attack Buffy was surprised by the demon that took two of the five rounds before disappearing onto the rooftop, staring at the empty roof Buffy was startled when Riley grabbed her hand and started running.

"Riley Wha?" She asked before trailing off, she really didn't know what she was going to ask.

"No time Buffy, that's not the first time I've hit that thing and I doubt it's down for the count." He said breathlessly as he pulled her towards the safe house, he really shouldn't get her involved, it was a massive breach in protocol to bring a civilian to a SHIELD base but the only other option was to leave her alone in the Sunnydale night with the Porcupine Man.

And that would seriously cut down on his odds of getting a second date.

--

John Plath entered his home with a sigh, the wards were still active, nothing had entered or exited his home since he left earlier, it had cost a small fortune but not even the senior partners could get to him here, it would give him time to think up a way out of this mess.

For a moment he considered spending the resources to send Glees' soul to a particularly viscous hell dimension before shrugging it off, the Senior partners would probably be more than capable of far more poetic punishment then that, and the last thing he wanted was to draw any more attention to himself then he already had.

Ignoring the need for a light Glees slumped into a chair and groaned as he landed on something hard, looking down he swallowed at the slightly concave shape that had been artistically colored to match his recliner.

"Soooo, your mister Plate… Plast… umm… So your John, I bet with a last name like that you got picked on a lot in school," the cold mocking voice said as a red and black form stepped out from behind the door with a detonator in his hand and a gun in his other. "In case you're wondering that is a M18A1 antipersonnel mine, now they say the recommended distance about fifty meters but you know I never got into the whole metric system, Damn French, so I decided to just see if I could get you as close as I could before detonating it." The masked form said with a mocking voice "Do you think your close enough?"

"H-How did you know I'd sit here," Plath said hesitantly as he tried to think his way out of the situation.

"Ooh I didn't, so I just put one under each seat in the house… and the bed… and the toilet… and inside a couple of the cabinets… ooh and I think there's one in the mailbox, not entirely sure about that one… Funny thing though I seem to have miss-calculated the number of detonators needed and only brought… umm… one…" the figure said as he held up the clacker to prove his point.

"Wait, I'll pay whatever your being paid I'll double it." Plath said desperately.

"Ooh I'm getting paid, The senior partners are paying me, Walfram and Hart is paying me, a couple of your subordinates are paying me, that feisty secretary of yours is paying me and LL&L is paying me, so I'm getting paid, and the only thing they have in common is the fact that you can't show up for work tomorrow or you know ever, and of course since I emptied your home safe and bank account I doubt you can outbid all of them sooo… consider this your severance package."

"B-but you'll get hit to, with that many explosives you won't get out of her either." Plath said as the form shrugged and held out the detonator.

"Yeah, that's gonna sting, but hey it's not like it's the first time, after all I'm…"

The house exploded.

--

Bobby Drake sat with his girlfriend as they stared at the tent the fallen professor had been taken too by the newest student of the X-Mansion for his part Bobby could hardly imagine having to carve one of his professors open while he was still alive, it didn't really matter that Professor Logan would survive being cut on, it was the principle of the matter.

"He used to be a lot like you," Rogue's soft words shocked the young man out of his mental terrors as he stared at the gorgeous mutant he had fallen for, after a moment silence Rogue shivered despite the blanket and clutched herself defensively "He would always try to make people laugh, even in the most dangerous times, or when they didn't even know they needed to laugh, but he saw it and… now he can't laugh anymore." The southern mutant said sadly as she fought to find the right words to describe Xander's plight. "When he discovered he was a mutant he told his best friend about it, swore her to secrecy and everything. That night he was attacked, when he woke up Sheila… his best friend's mom was cutting him open to put metal on his bones, they kept him down there for month's cutting him open and adding things to him, never letting him die." The young mutant said as she fought back tears "That little whore betrayed him, and if I ever lay eyes on her I'll kill her." Rogue swore before she burst into tears.

For his part Bobby Drake held his girlfriend as she cried and tried to imagine what it would take to turn him into a monster like Harris.

--


	13. Chapter 13

Logan awoke with a snarl and lashed out at his nightmares. After a moment's struggle, the sounds of the camp around him brought the feral man back to reality as he stared around the tent.

"It's over."

Spinning towards the sound, Logan's claws popped forth again and he glared at the young man that seemed to be the cause of the current problems. Taking a deep breath, Logan withdrew his claws and took a moment to calm his racing nerves, "How're the kids" he rumbled.

Harris shrugged from his position on the far side of the tent, "Couple of grazes and a bunch of fear. We're packing up to return to the school as soon as you're ready." Xander explained as the older mutant stood slowly and started to dress in the clothes Kitty had picked up from the teacher's tent before it had been taken down.

Grumbling about how much the professor owed him; Logan pulled a flannel shirt on before cracking his neck, "Well, no use waiting anymore. Load up and lets go." He growled before stepping out into the too bright morning light, it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day. Grumbling to himself about that particular dig from Mother Nature, Logan headed for the bus.

The least the world could do was look as miserable as he felt.

--

Onboard the SHIELD Helicarrier agents from the multinational organization were scrambling about in what would be considered panic by lesser trained individuals, but as these were agents of SHIELD it was merely considered rapid mobilization.

The Sunnydale team had gone completely offline and was currently considered MIA by those in command. After experiencing what happened when missing agents turned up, SHIELD now had an official violence mandate for looking into missing and captured agents.

The last elements of the response team finished their prep and hit the launch deck, lined up before the gaze of General Nick Fury. "As of oh-nine hundred this morning the powers that be have decided that the 'Sunnydale Situation' is under control and under the authority of some two bit air-force backed 'Initiative' and ordered us out, with any agent failing to respond to the recall to be considered AWOL and a traitor." The one eyed legend said to the gathered soldiers. "As it is a direct order the Hellicarrier is moving off and we are standing down from combat operations in Sunnydale."

The gathered soldiers looked on impassively as they imagined the shit storm that order must have kicked up in the control room.

"As all of you have gotten ready though we will have ourselves a little training mission at the randomly generated location of thirty-two by fifty six north by one hundred and eighteen by twenty-four west, recon and response teams will be moving out for training in ten. Dismissed," the older man said as the assembled soldiers moved to their departure stations.

"How long do you think it will take those idiots in Washington to realize the longitude and latitude for Sunnydale is the exact same 'Randomly generated' location as your training mission?" Natasha Romanoff asked as she stood beside her commander and watched the gathered soldiers with a critical eye.

"Long enough. Part of the training is going to be a 'freak electrical surge' resulting in a communications problem. They can call out but no new orders will be received," Fury stated with a dark anger at the idiots that had tried to get his people killed.

Nodding her head, Natasha saluted and turned to get to her deployment shuttle.

"Natasha," Fury said and knew the Russian born assassin heard him as she froze on the catwalk, "That Rosenberg bitch is back in Sunnydale. While I don't have the authority to issue a sanction against her, she cut open a kid while he was still screaming and made him into a weapon." Nick said as he lit a cigar and slowly took a pull. "Plant the bitch somewhere nice." He growled before walking away from the Widow.

For her part Natasha merely nodded and went to find her team, she had a training mission to lead after all.

--

Xander jerked as he resisted the urge to fall asleep in the cramped bus while they traveled back towards school. Jubilee was sleeping against his arm on one side of the large bench seat as Casey snored softly on the other, a combination that was getting him very odd looks from the rest of the bus' occupants.

"Hey Taz, look we didn't really get off on the right foot." Bobby said as he plopped into one of the empty seats that always seemed to appear around Xander for some reason.

Resisting the urge to growl, Xander looked at the teen before shrugging and looking out the window at the passing scenery. "My names not Taz," he half growled before the kid shrugged and smiled.

"Well it may not be but that's what everyone's calling you now so you should probably get used to it, besides as codenames go Taz is far better than say Boom-Boom," Bobby said with a smirk as he missed the near murderous gaze of the blonde teen he had insulted, "Besides code names aside, you look like you need some help around the mansion, so what do ya say, friends?" Bobby asked as he held out a hand and smiled as Xander turned a glare on him for a second before he leaned forward.

"My first friend was turned by a vampire and I was forced to destroy him, my second sold me out and her mother cut me open and made me like this, my third fucked a corpse, almost got us all killed and was pissed when I saved their lives by lying and my fourth fucked me than threw me out and pretended I didn't exist. Given all that I don't think I'll be doing the 'friend' thing with anyone anytime soon." Xander growled before turning back to the passing scenery and ignoring the teen as best he could.

For his part Bobby simply swallowed his fear a bit and put a happy smile on his face, "Okay then, well when you get settled and all just let me know." He said before moving back to the front of the bus where Rogue was curled up on her seat sleeping.

At the front Logan turned his full attention back to the road and let out a growl at those responsible for the boy's current situation; he really hoped Fury held up his end of the bargain.

--

Wade Wilson, also known as Deadpool looked at the contract he had received from the Hellhouse and frowned behind his trademark mask (and boy hadn't that been a headache to achieve) and considered the implications. It seemed that despite his affiliation with Landau, Luckman and Lake (who'd been a great help in getting the trademark) the rival firm Wolfram and Hart had been particularly impressed with his skills (how did that spider dweeb pull off the whole copyright without any representation was something that kept Wade up at nights. Well that and the contents of Spam.) And now they wanted to hire him for another mission in the great state of California, (he had finally gotten one of the managers to admit to something involving a byproduct of byproducts… which was disturbing even to him.) Thinking it over, Deadpool signed the contract and made plans for a short trip just south of LA, some sleepy little berg called Sunnydale of all things, sounded like the home of hippies and folk singers. Wade was hoping for a nice little bloodbath from the place.

Looking around at the gathered travelers in the LAX terminal Wade took a deep cleansing breath 'PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY!" he yelled loudly before looking at the slightly freaked people nearby, "Sorry just had the sudden urge to scream that." he admitted sheepishly before activating the Body-Slide.

Speaking of which, he needed to pick up his sheep-zooka before the mission, cause well… you never know.

--

Rupert Giles glared at the young redhead that had just told the story of how she found out about Faith's living conditions, "So you are telling me that your mother was the cause of this… atrocity?" he growled and carefully set his glasses aside at Willows shameful nod, taking a deep breath, the older man settled his nerves as best he could before looking at Willow carefully, "I need you to understand something Willow, very bad things are about to happen to your mother. By taking actions such as these she has made many powerful enemies, enemies that will respond violently." He explained as Willow nodded and stood to leave.

"I understand Giles," she whispered with a sad look on her face "I w… well I had hoped that knowing something like that would make me feel… sad at least, but Sheila has become as evil as the Nazis that tortured grandpa Erik. I just hope somebody stops her before she can hurt anyone else," the young witch said before leaving the library to an old demon raiser and the ghosts he had tried to hide from.

Taking a moment Giles let Willow get a good distance from the library before picking up the phone and dialing an old number. After a ringing a moment, the line was picked up and a sharp voice answered, calming his nerves from what he was about to do. Giles smiled at the memory of his god-daughter at a much younger age, "Good morning Electra, this is Rupert, Rupert Giles…"

The conversation would not take long.

--

Victor Creed looked at the photograph for a moment before turning back to his current leader, "Why?" he asked. Not that he really cared, the target was as good as dead, but it was sometimes good to have a bit of background before he went on a mission.

Magneto, for his part, simply glared from beneath his helm for a moment before sighing. "She has decided to experiment on our brethren for her own petty gains, and after being captured and imprisoned was released on a technicality. That, however, is a situation that I shall be correcting while you deal with the main problem." Eric turned away, he felt a deep anger at his daughter for her betrayal, but he would not turn a blind eye as the world had to his plight so many decades earlier.

As his attack dog left on his mission, Erik shed a tear at the loss of his family.


	14. Chapter 14

Mayor Richard Wilkins stared at the dark form before him a moment before leaning back in his chair and thinking on the situation, "I don't care what your other job is, or even if you do it on the side, but this is important That boy is drawing far too much attention to my town and I won't stand for it." He said calmly before pushing a series of pictures towards the form.

He continued, "My sources have alerted me to several, rather troublesome, individuals moving in this direction. Now,while I don't give two figs about the Rosenberg woman, these people have the ability to cause me no end of headaches, Kill them and then the boy." The Mayor said as the dark form nodded before fading away with the pictures.

"I will restore order in my town if I have to flood the streets with blood." Wilkins promised before shuddering at how unsanitary that particular thought was.

--

Xander let out a full body shudder as he exited the bus. He hated being that close to so many people. The only thing keeping him from being in a worse mood than he currently was, was Jubilee's incessantly pleasant attitude. He would almost hate her for it if it wasn't so damn infectious.

"So Taz, what's your plan for the day?" the object of his mood said happily as she bounced off the bus and smiled at him.

"Take a shower, get in some clean clothes, find out who attacked us and introduce their heads to their colons." Xander admitted before looking over at her long suffering sigh.

"No, I mean after that," she said before giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Some of us are headed into town for a shopping trip, we leave at six. See ya then, Taz." She said as she ran into the house, leaving a shocked Xander in her wake.

After a few moments to reboot his cognitive functions, Xander finally frowned. "My Names Not Taz!" he shouted after her before catching the stares from the other mutants. "Well it's not," he declared before moving into the house himself.

Behind him the tough, gruff and sour mutant Wolverine tried to put out the sparks from the cigar he had dropped while laughing.

--

Electra sat on the private charter plane and glared out the window, it had been decades since she had last seen or heard from her Godfather. While the older man had tried after her father's death, she had been so closed down emotionally she had missed it.

Taking a deep breath to settle her emotions, the assassin wondered how many other opportunities she had missed. And now, after all this time, he had finally contacted her. Not as a friend, but as a client.

For a moment, Electra wondered what the woman had done to anger Rupert 'Ripper' Giles to the point of hiring a professional before shrugging it off. Idle speculation would not help and might possibly hinder her ability to focus on the mission.

As the plane started its final descent into the small Sunnydale airport, Electra took a deep calming breath to focus herself.

She had a mission after all.

--

NataliaRomanova sat on the boat as it sped towards her team's destination. Of the fifteen man extraction team, Natasha was the only one with the full and expanded mission objectives.

The orders were to infiltrate Sunnydale, reconnoiter and retrieve Sunnydale team with the bare minimum of civilian interference. Should the team be captured they are to report back to SHIELD Hellicarrier immediately and attempt rescue only if the opportunity provides itself. Should the team be found dead, their bodies are to be retrieved and transported back to the Hellicarrier for burial, in such an event, their killers are to be found and reported back to SHIELD for proper response, and finally, Sheila Rosenberg is to be terminated with extreme prejudice.

Leaning back against the fast deployment boat bench, Natasha let her mind drift. Assassin, it was what she was, she admitted. She had done terrible things in her time with Russia, things that haunted her to this day. She had done even worse things both for and against America in all her years.

She had met plenty of people like the soon to be deceased good Doctor Rosenberg. Some she had killed, others she'd protected. It wasn't anything personal, it had just been the job.

But now, it was starting to become personal. Having read over the reports SHIELD had confiscated from the lab, the Black Widow found herself hating this woman Natasha wanted to hurt her before she finally let her die, she wanted… taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly as she focused on the mission. "It's just a job," she whispered, trying to convince herself before preparing to disembark.

--

Victor Creed sat on the train as it made its way towards Sunnydale. He had been ordered to do one of his favorite things in the whole world, he got to kill someone. It was something he enjoyed so he did it, not for money, or power, or even a cause like his current employer. No, Victor killed because it was something he was good at and he enjoyed doing things he was good at. And if you're going to get paid, make sure it's something you enjoy and are good at.

Life was pretty damn decent sometimes, he finally decided as the train continued on the tracks.

--

Wade Wilson snored. He had body slid into Sunnydale a few hours earlier and promptly gotten into a heated argument with the current inhabitant of the bathroom stall he found himself in.

After a rousing game of 'let's see your spleen' played with the inhabitants of the bar, said bathroom was attached to, Wade had proceeded to beat some information out of the bartender.

He didn't know why he did it, or even if the information was important. Heck for all he knew the little rat had lied to him, but the man just seemed to be the type you beat up for information… Kinda like Weasel. Of course Weasel would never lie to him like that Willard guy did, but Deadpool was a forgiving sort. He didn't care about being lied to, of course if Wimbley lied to him who else might he lie to? Did he lie on his taxes, or the census report?

Heck, Wade would bet good money Wilbur was the type to lie on those crappy TV guide personality tests just to get the best score. Not that it was important, but if he lied on a test for the best score, that was cheating, and as wise man once said, "cheaters never perspire"… not that it was true, Wendy had been sweating bullets last night as Deadpool asked him questions, and as they had proven that he was a cheater and the like, his sweating was most likely faked as well. That meant he wasn't really scared of Deadpool at all, and if you can't trust lying little rats to be scared when you threaten their appendages, who could you trust? Of course if he lied and wasn't afraid, then he must have been hiding something, and if he was hiding something and was already a proven liar, he would try to move what he was hiding, but if it was important enough to hide then he would probably go with it, and if he went with it then he was running, and only guilty people ran, so what was important enough to Waldo for him to run? If it was worse than the threat of being mangled, it was probably bad, like rape or murder or maybe talking during the emotional points in movies.

Getting up from pretending to sleep, Deadpool grabbed one of his swords as he ran out the door to catch Wally before he escaped, a few moment of screaming later and the legendary mercenary reentered his room for his clothes.

And maybe a Doorknob.

--

Willow stared in shock before turning back to her current roommate, "Faith, did you just see a guy in a mask and Spiderman underwear run out with a sword then scream and run back in?" she asked as the Boston born Slayer banged her head against the wall to try and get the image out of her head.

Faith realized it was going to be one of those days.

--

Riley Finn watched as the young woman he had saved the night before paced. It had turned out that she was the Slayer, a mystically enhanced super soldier against the forces of darkness or some such thing. She was super fast, super strong, extremely flexible and capable of adapting to more forms of violence then he even knew existed.

And she really didn't like being cooped up.

Flinching as she lashed out at the sealed door again, Riley simply slid back into the corner and prayed that command got a response team here fast.


	15. Chapter 15

Xander rubbed the remaining water from his hair as he made his way through the mansion towards the teachers' lounge. While he was old enough to go into town by himself, the teachers usually wanted him to at least give them a heads up before he headed out.

Reaching up to knock on the door, he was surprised at the vicious snarl from the other side. After a moment's consideration, Xander put his ear against the door and listened.

Logan lashed out with a snarl and felt only slightly better as his claws ripped three massive gouges in the lounge wall. "What the hell do you mean she's out? Fury swore that bitch would never see the light of day again." The feral mutant growled as he struggled with the berserker rage that he felt building within him.

"I'm sure Nick is doing everything he can Logan, but Mrs. Rosenberg has some very powerful people backing her. While the law firm that helped her get out is 'correcting' this as fast as they can, with the assistance of Landau, Luckman and Lake, she should be back in prison within a few days." Charles Xavier said as he tried to calm the mutant down slightly. "But until this is resolved I think we should keep this from Alexander."

"…Keep this from Alexander."

Snarling silently to himself, Xander felt his claws trying to work their way through his flesh. Taking a deep breath he turned and silently made his way down the hallway towards the front door.

He had a meeting with a certain scientist back home.

While Logan hated the idea of hiding this from the kid, he knew that Harris would likely do something stupid if he discovered it. Jerking the door open, Logan froze at the sight of a damp towel lying on the floor. Taking a sniff, the feral mutant growled before taking off towards the nearest exit. "CHUCK THE KID HEARD US!"

Jubilee smiled as she walked down the hallway towards the front door. She was clean and happy and everything was in line for a great day shopping with her friends, even Taz had agreed to come along.

Life was looking good.

She was surprised when Logan nearly ran her over as he came around a corner and hit the front doors at a dead run before a stampede of teachers and other X-Men followed the small feral mutant out the door.

Blinking in shock, Jubilee watched them go before looking around at the gathered students and getting a quick idea of who was the source of the commotion.

"Xander," she whispered in fear before running to find her friends.

Deadpool entered the bar with a flourish as he searched for his prey. Looking around, the Mercenary ignored the large collection of knives, swords, teeth, claws and guns that were brought to bear on him as he looked for Wallace.

With a loud bang, the world exploded and the mercenary collapsed with a massive bleeding wound in his skull.

As he lay bleeding a well dressed man stood up from a back table and walked towards his victim, he had been as surprised as the rest of the team when one of their targets had walked into the bar. Thankfully his reaction time and weapons reach had allowed him to pick up the bounty faster than his competition.

Getting a grip on his victim's mask, the assassin was surprised when the dead man spun around and shoved a massive pistol into his gut. Looking into the damaged mask, the Terakin was shocked to see the hole in the man's head was already healed over.

"Let me know if this tickles," Wade growled before pulling the trigger on the automatic pistol and splattering his attacker's middle across the occupants of the bar.

Rising unsteadily to his feet, Deadpool shook off the lingering vertigo he felt whenever a projectile put a breathing hole into his brainpan and glared around at the shocked patrons. "Anyone else wanna play?" he challenged before a knife blade made an appearance in his chest.

Looking down at the protruding steel, the masked mercenary took a moment to glare at the small man that had thrown it as he stood with another man; both of them wore very distinctive rings, rings very similar to the one on his recent playmate. "Alright, let the senseless violence begin."

Natasha looked at the three corpses of the Sunnydale team with a frown, the safe house was destroyed, the team was dead and the commanding officer was missing.

Leaning down the assassin opened the dead-mans mouth and grimaced at the red blood that seemed to fill it "Chert poderi," she cursed before glancing around room with a frown, "Agents, Vampires are near."

With a rush of movements half the agents swapped their weapons out for the far more damaging Plasma weapons that had proven very effective against almost all supernatural opponents, while the remained shifted their standard melee weapons for the blessed Silver daggers shield issued.

Nodding Natasha increased the voltage on her own Widow Bites before injecting an enhanced form of the Komodo Dragon saliva into the downed agents, in a few hours the bodies would be completely decomposed, leaving nothing for the demonic spirits to inhabit, a sad fate for the dead but much more acceptable than leaving the vampire infested corpse to walk around.

SHIELD took a dim view on demonic invaders.

Electra let a small smile grace her features as she hugged her godfather closely, it had been to long since they had last truly seen each other.

It had been just before her mother's death as a matter of fact, since then every time she had seen him it had been at a funeral for a loved one.

Stepping back Giles held her at arm's length and smiled "Electra, my dear, it has been far too long."

Letting herself smile Electra kissed her godfather check before nodding "It has Uncle Rupert, far to long," she said before clearing her throat and taking a step back as she let her professional persona back into control "But reunions must wait, tell me about this Sheila Rosenberg," watching her godfathers reaction Electra was shocked at the absolute rage the usually pleasant man allowed to seep through before reigning in his emotions.

"Sir,"

Nick Fury blinked as his conversation was interrupted, taking a deep breath the grizzled war veteran turned from his company and glared at the young Agent, "What is it?" he growled in his best Logan impression.

Straightening his spine at the tone the agent resisted the urge to run before responding "General Bradley Stone has just arrived, he has a JC pouch."

Blinking at that Fury looked at his guest before frowning; two star generals didn't show up with sealed Joint Chief Transfer pouches to go over expenditure reports. "Send him in," he ordered before leaning back in his chair.

"What's this about Nick?"

Looking up at the plain clothed man that sat across the desk Nick Fury let out a sigh, he had known this was coming ever since he had issued the orders, it just hurt that his commanders had fallen so far as to ignore this. "Last month we hit a research cell being run by a rather dark black bag group, some nasty shit going on in there, not the least of which was an updated version of the Weapon X project, whole damn thing being run by a buck general of the Thunderbolt Ross breed and a mad shit scientist that carved up a kid in place of Logan." Fury explained as the man across from him clenched his hands into fists. "Don't worry Steve, we cleaned them all out, sent the doc up the creek, the kid out to Xaviers and the general... was sanctioned, training accident."

"So why are they sending a general to speak with you now?" the legend said as he tried to keep his anger under control.

Smirking at the anger in the man's voice Nick shrugged. "Well, seems some two bit scum bag lawyer managed to get the bitch out of prison, I was ordered off."

Steve Rogers grit his teeth at the injustice, he had been fully briefed on the Weapon X program, while the tests the subjects had undergone were barbaric they all had one thing in common, every single one of them had volunteered, from what Fury was saying this kid had been conscripted. "I'm assuming from the uninvited guest you told them were to stick that order." He commented as the leader of SHIELD grinned evilly around his cigar.

"Widows in town now, training mission and all that." he declared as Steve nodded in understanding.

While he didn't like killing Steve was a soldier, he had fought in one of the bloodiest wars this world had seen and while he would work to save lives he did understand that some people could not be allowed to live. "Alright, I'm guessing Stone is coming up here with the idea of taking SHIELD away from you as some sort of punishment?" Steve asked and growled at the director's nod, "We'll just see about that."

"The kids gonna need transportation," Logan said to the gathered X-Men before looking at the teams. "The ports out, it would take too long, so we have trains, planes, cars and good old fashioned running. Scott you and Peter check the garages, make sure the kid didn't liberate something to get him there than move to the bus depots, Jean you and Storm have the train station and car rentals, the professor is with Kurt on their way to the airport, I'll head for Sunnydale and try to pick up his scent." He said and nodded as the assembled mutant broke up to search.

Taking a moment to put the kids scent at the top of his scent memory Logan headed out of the gate before turning West, if the kid was feral he would head for Sunnydale like a laser.

If he wasn't than he was even more dangerous, and the kid would kill anything that got in his way.

Frank Castle stared looked around the hanger for survivors, the bodies of the smuggling ring that had been supplying guns and money to the local gangs were scattered about like a bloody tornado had torn through the place, it was almost as violent as one of his hits.

Looking around the scattered corpses he took a moment to track the commercial jet as it took off unsteadily from the runway the smugglers had been using to avoid DEA and ATF suspicion.

Watching it bank west Frank wondered for a moment if he should try and follow before turning as several SUV's pulled up with the smugglers clients and their body guards.

Whoever was flying that jet would have to wait, the Punisher still had a job to do.


	16. Chapter 16

Xander struggled with the controls as he tried to ignore the small voice in the back of his head warning him that this was a very bad idea. The Soldier memories had proven helpful in this situation as the military man knew slightly more about flying than Xander himself did.

As he aimed the jet in the general area of Sunnydale, he contemplated how he would find the small town from the air. While he didn't know the exact direction, he knew enough to head west with a hint of south before turning at LA and hoping for the best.

He just really hoped the military didn't pick him up. The soldier memories warned that governments frowned on unregistered planes flying over major metropolitan centers, and those frowns were usually punctuated by fighters being sent to "Escort" him to the ground… One way or another.

He really hoped they didn't pick him up.

Logan resisted the urge to grin as the big Harley roared down the road toward his objective. While he loved the freedom of the open road, he knew the assembled X-men would try and stop the kid and given the heavy hitters the team sported they might even succeed for a time, but Logan knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the kid would be obsessed. Xander would keep trying until the bitch was dead, and anyone that got in his way would be in for a world of hurt before the kid got through with them.

Not that he wanted the kid to take that step any more than Chuck Taking a life was something Logan worked hard to keep from the students, sometimes he succeeded… Other times not so much.

Still he knew from personal experience how quickly revenge could eat up a kid like Xander, turning him into something ugly.

Logan's reflections were interrupted as a group of bikers roared past, dragging a man in a very familiar uniform along behind them. Snarling the feral mutant leaned over and severed the rope, letting the injured state trooper roll to a stop.

Slowing, Logan turned the Harley around and glared at the disfigured face of the lead biker. While he had seen his share of mutants and aliens, Logan was pretty sure the scarred and disfigured forms before him didn't fall into either of those particular categories.

Razor glared at the do-gooder that had spoiled their fun. The cop was a non-issue as far as he was concerned, they were like cockroaches. No matter how many you squished they always seemed to have more, but do-gooders... Those were remarkably rare in this day and age and he was looking forward to doing his part in making them extinct.

With a roar of engines and voices, the assembled Demons charged.

As the gathered students chattered amongst themselves about what was happening, a small group slipped off by themselves.

Jubilation Lee, Bobby Drake, Kurt Wagner and Anna Marie had decided to go after Xander and bring him back before he got into trouble. If they were quick enough, no one would even realize they were gone and they already had directions for Sunnydale, so could be there before the weekend if they pushed hard enough.

The teens slipped into the garage to liberate some transportation and they breathed a sigh of relief as the doors slid silently open before sucking in a gasp when it opened completely, revealing the armored form of Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin.

"And just what do you four think you are doing?" the massive mutant said as Nightcrawler disappeared in a puff of Brimstone laced smoke.

Deadpool looked around the bar in confusion as he scratched his head in thought, "Now I know I came in here for a reason, and I doubt it was for chimichangas," he mumbled before catching sight of the cowering bartender and smiling "Ooh yeah, that's right." He said snapping his fingers and leaping over the bar with a smile.

Willy stared in horror at the man that still had a piece of Polgara spike shoved through his chest as he waved a sword around threateningly. In the back of his mind, Willy began to wonder if his deal with Wilkins was really worth all this.

Natasha growled as she worked on getting the fallback shelter to open. Whatever had found this place had put a lot of time and effort into getting through the blast door and had shredded the code-locks worse than Wolverine. The team had collected a sample of the odd quills they had found nearby and was currently on the lookout for any threats, supernatural or otherwise.

Jerking a collection of wires out, Natasha shoved the ends into her Spiderbite and triggered the weapon. With a fierce smile, the massive blast doors slid open revealing the fallback shelter.

Her smile dropped at the sight of the team commander kneeling over a groaning blonde as he messaged her shoulders in a professional manner, "Finn!" She snapped and was surprised at the amount of action that short word managed to generate. In the following seconds, she was treated to the sight of a Shield Agent being thrown across the room, a topless blonde jumping up in a modified combat stance and a still rolling Riley Finn firing his Taser into the blond's buttocks, dropping the violent teen to the ground in a twitching mess.

Raising an eyebrow at the trained soldier's response, Natasha swore to get to the bottom of this before things got any more complicated.

Electra frowned as her godfather laid out the entire situation to her. She had seen and done a multitude of horrors in her time with the Hand, yet the idea of carving someone open while they still screamed so you could implant metal on their bones was something even she would shy away from.

Not that groups like Hydra or even her old collogues at the Hand would even think twice about it, but even then they would use volunteers. Admittedly, not out of any altruistic ideals, but they had enough sense to wonder what would happen should their weapon ever get free. Logan and herself had driven that concept home a long time ago.

"Alright Uncle Rupert, I'll do this." She heard herself say as the older man nodded in understanding. Rising from her seat, Electra made a mental note to return and spend some time with her Godfather, she was only just recently rediscovering how important family can be.

Victor Creed jumped from the moving train, rolling slightly he allowed his momentum to bring him back to his feet while he looked around the area for possible threats. Not that he believed anyone had followed him, but you didn't get to be as old as he was without making some enemies and it never hurt to be cautious.

His paranoia paid off this time as he noticed a small shimmer of light before his chest exploded in pain. Lunging to the side, Creed bit down on the snarl he so wanted to indulge in as he tried to disappear into the brush near the train tracks.

Shifting through the underbrush, he frowned as he pulled the massive quill from his chest and stared at it in shock. His best guess would put the porcupine this came from at about eight feet tall.

Double checking the Javelin like spine, Victor sniffed the end and made sure he had the scent of his attacker before springing from the brush and sprinting for the closest building.

He distinctly remembered that porcupines were especially tasty.

General Bradley Stone felt the smile tug at his lips slightly as he entered the office of a long time thorn in his side, his smile dropped at the sight that greeted him. Instead of one aging legend that he was expecting, he instead found two world renowned legends talking to the President of the United States directly.

Glaring at the smirking Colonel and stoic Captain, Brigadier General Bradley Stone turned and saluted the screen with his commander in chief. It looked like his day was about to get a lot worse.


	17. Chapter 17

Xander struggled with the controls as an obnoxious beeping from the flight console and a flashing red light desperately tried to get his attention. While the plane had succeeded in getting him across the country, it seemed that an east coast to west coast flight was just outside of its flight range and the flying metal tube was heading towards an unwanted meeting with the ground due to a desperate need for fuel.

Flinching as the Leer jet shot over the top of the mountain, scaring the bejeezus out of a hiker he could just make out on the ridgeline as he skimmed it by a dozen or so feet, Xander scanned the horizon for anything that could be hit before unbuckling himself from the seat and rushing to the back.

He was really starting to hate this plan. Originally he was going to crash the plane into the ocean and parachute back down to the ground, unfortunately the plane was running out of fuel and the drug smugglers had lightened the load by unloading the parachutes so they could haul more drugs.

Snarling at the stupidity of the situation, Xander struggled through the bales of illicit narcotics into the back of the plane. Holding on to the shuddering airframe, Xander took a moment to slice through the bright orange box attached there before whispering a quick prayer concerning his healing abilities. Popping his fourth claw and staring at the considerably longer blade, while normal for him now, he still shuddered that he would ever consider having three claws pop out of his hand as normal. The three upper claws were serrated to increase the damage done to his opponents and reduce healing abilities, this one, however was a straight blade with an Americanized Tanto tip, precisely designed to increase heavy cutting and leverage.

Jabbing the longer blade into the wall of the cabin, Xander jerked down and opened up a gash in the side of the plane and was shocked at how quickly everything went to hell. In moments the plane seemed to disintegrate around him and he found himself falling to earth.

Rolling himself into a ball, Xander hoped for the best before the impact, and then darkness.

Logan couldn't help but laugh as he sat amongst the shattered steel and broken bodies of the biker gang. They had been surprisingly resistant to death, continuing the fight after severed limbs and broken bones would have put most species down. Pulling a cigar out of his pocket, he let the combination of tobacco and paper ignite on a slowly burning motorcycle before stomping the little flame out, it wouldn't do to get blown up after winning.

He was surprised when one of the bikers struggled to his feet, missing an arm and a good portion of his chest, yet still limping towards the mutant with murder in his eyes Logan was even more surprised when two heavy, three fifty-seven slugs exploded into the back of the biker's skull dropping it to the ground in a lifeless heap.

Looking behind him, Logan nodded at the injured member of the Ohio State Troopers as he limped his way up with his sidearm aimed at the corpse. After not so gently kicking it to assure himself it was deceased, the trooper returned his back-up weapon to its holster and slumped to the ground. Letting the man recover for a moment, Logan finally asked the required stupid question, "You okay, Bub?"

Smiling as the man flipped him the bird, Logan shrugged and took another puff of his cigar.

Groaning a bit in pain, Trooper Anthony Tollin lowered himself onto one of the overturned bikes and let out a sigh, "You do know that by state law I am required to bring you in for all this, as well as those 'concealed' knives you seem to have hidden up your sleeves," he said slowly before grunting in pain once more as his ribs attempted to explain their desire to never go through that again to him. "But considering my current state, I'm going to use my discretion to let you go with a warning." He shrugged before starting the slow process of getting back to his cruiser and calling for help. The man knew his savior would be long gone by the time he got back.

With a final chuckle, Logan walked back over to his bike and pulled it back upright. While this had been amusing, it wasn't getting him any closer to the kid.

Casey looked down from the second story window at the four students as Mister Peter yelled at them. He really didn't understand why he was mad, everyone else had gone out looking for Taz after he ran away, and they had just wanted to help.

Taking a deep breath, Casey decided to ask Tick-Tock for help. She had found the funny toy in the basement and had worked very hard to get it up and dancing again. Listening to the toy, Casey wondered how she could make everyone happy again before she hit on the perfect Idea.

After a few moments the ground started to rumble as Tick-Tock forced his way out of the ground.

Below, the five mutants stared in shock as the massive Sentinel unit forced its way out of the ground and rocketed into the sky heading west.

Behind it Casey excitedly jumped up and down. Tick-Tock would find Taz and bring him back, then everyone would be happy.

Deadpool exited the bar with a manic smile hidden under his mask. Winston had been very forthcoming this time and had even been nice enough to explain who exactly had sent the two bit assassins that had decided to play with him earlier. Skipping down the street, the mostly insane mercenary headed towards town hall because he so wanted to talk to Dick about this, but first he needed to make a stop at the nearby military base.

"Dick," He mumbled to himself as he walked away with a chuckle.

He was still snickering about the man's name when he approached city hall and decided to introduce himself, dropping his borrowed burden on top of a very nice limousine outside the government building, Wade chuckled to himself as he slid the massive fifty caliber M2 into place and fed the first belt into the weapon.

In the Mayor's office, Deputy Mayor Allen Finch was finishing up his day cleaning up the Mayor's recent… indiscretions. Not that he really blamed the Mayor, everyone in politics had a vice. For some it was underage hookers, while others embezzled funds, or engaged in illicit drugs. Mayor Wilkins, on the other hand had a bad habit of sacrificing his secretary to demonic forces; it wasn't Allen's place to comment.

He was busy humming a catchy tune to himself as he made a final notation to get the carpet replaced in the mayor's office when the first seven hundred and fifty gram round punched through the brick wall and clipped his shoulder, spinning him around. Then ten more rounds ripped through the general area he was occupying, in the next second, killing the junior politician and dropping his corpse to the ground. Around him the massive fifty caliber rounds continued to destroy everything in the mayor's office as the Ma-Deuce did exactly what it was designed for.

In less than a minute, the firing stopped as the belt fed weapon finally ran out of ammo. With a skip in his step, Deadpool danced down the street. Hopefully now he wouldn't have anymore distractions in killing the Rosenberg person.

Behind him, Mayor Richard Wilkins looked out through the tinted windows of the limousine at the destruction his office had suffered at the hands of the mercenary and slowly set his coffee down. With a sigh, the undisputed ruler of Sunnydale leaned back in his seat and massaged his temples as a headache pounded behind his eyes. It was beginning to look like he may actually have to flood the streets with blood just to get everything back under control. Maybe his old friend would be able to help.

Picking up the phone Wilkins dialed a number that technically didn't exist and waited as the buzz on the other end informed him that the signal had gone through. It was several long moments before the line was picked up, "Essex industries, how may I direct your call."

Natasha glared at the agent standing in front of her for a handful of seconds after he finished giving his report, "Just to clarify, Agent Finn; you illegally hacked into secured government systems, lost your entire team to hostile actions, were engaged by several assassins, lost a safe house and brought a civilian into one of the most confidential safe rooms in the world." Natasha stared as the young agent nodded in confirmation, "And after violating enough security procedures to have you shot, you discovered the civilian was the equivalent of a mutant combat specialist with extreme claustrophobic and control issues… and you planned to handle this by giving her a Swedish message?" the Black Widow asked in a chilled voice as the young agent began to look nervous.

"Yes ma'am," Riley said stiffly as he went over the past day in his mind and decided that, despite the glares he was currently receiving from his superior, he would most likely do the same thing again. "I believe the information I retrieved is of primary importance at the moment, it seems Richard Wilkins is directly responsible for the dimensional breech in this area and has spent the last hundred years protecting it from being discovered." The Shield Lieutenant explained before taking a deep breath, "It looks like he has been using it to prepare for a major event of some sort and the ball may be dropping soon."

Natasha spent a moment searching the soldiers face for any hint of deception, "How soon?" she finally asked as her mind started going over possible responses.

"Something big in the next couple days, final event in a little over three month's time," Riley explained before moving on to the big issue. "Rumblings from the underground are saying something about an 'Ascension' event. Soon after discovering this, I was attacked by an assassin wearing this," he said as he dropped the ring onto the table.

Electra was heading for the exit of the school when a short, goblin-like man rounded the corner. She would almost call him troll-like, but he was far too short for such a title. Glaring at the sneering little rat, Electra blinked as a memory surfaced from her past, a young A.I.M agent, Rufus Snyder had been contracted for termination before the rat-like little man had disappeared from the world at large.

Snyder had just started his rant against improper dress in his school when he finally really looked at the young woman's face, and froze.

While not at the top of the food chain in A.I.M., he had worked on enough projects in his time to make him a target, so he had wisely studied the most likely assassins to be sent after him. He knew, of course, that the likes of Electra Natchios and the Black Widow were never really going to come after him, he had still found it… rewarding to study their files and pictures for hours on end.

Swallowing his desire to whimper in terror, Rufus let his 'Principle Snyder' persona drop.

Electra became aware of exactly when the older man recognized her and in a moment he went from a rat-like bully to something far colder and sinister, as his hand moved towards the inside of his jacket. Electra stepped forward and launched a kick towards the man's chin as she cursed herself for carrying light.

Jumping back from the kick, Snyder tried desperately to open up some distance between himself and the red clad assassin. Jerking the small machine pistol from its holster, Rufus sprayed a burst in the direction of Electra; not that he actually expected to hit her but it would hopefully make her pause, he only needed a few seconds and he would have a chance.

Diving around a corner, he ignored the sharp sound as several lethal chunks of metal embedded themselves in the wall behind him and shoved past a couple of students. He sprinted down the empty hallway, taking only a moment to jerk the fire alarm down as he rushed past, Snyder grinned as the hallway started to rapidly fill with slightly panicked students.

Shoving the weapon back under his jacket, Snyder smiled as he made it outside and triggered the auto start on his car. He cursed whoever had brought that particular bitch to Sunnydale, he knew she hadn't been there for him or he would have never seen her coming, this had just been an unfortunate turn of events.

Standing at the top of the Sunnydale high steps, Electra watched as the small Porsche roared out of the parking lot before she turned her glare at the wide eyed students that were filing past.

With a silent snarl, she turned and disappeared into the growing crowd. It seemed she had a loose end to tie up before she could get to the Rosenberg woman.

Behind her, a shocked Faith stared after the retreating killer. She had just gotten over the psycho with the sword from earlier and was showing up, as per Giles' order, to see about getting a new place to crash when she had almost been run over by Snyder as the red Dominatrix queen had chased him down.

Turning towards the still gaping Willow, Faith finally grabbed the redhead by the hand and pulled her toward the library. They really needed some answers.

Moving through the dark, abandoned building, Victor made sure his steps fell softly as he hunted his opponent, his prey. The strange Porcupine man had proven an agile and crafty foe and Victor's coat had gathered several more holes to it thanks to the ambushes the man had sprung on him. Gliding into the next room, Victor made sure to check the area for his opponent carefully before sniffing again.

He had been following Porky through the abandoned buildings that dominated this area of Sunnydale for the last half an hour without a single sighting, but his scent remained as a clear path. Following it to the exit, the feral mutant checked the surrounding buildings for his attacker before following the trail out.

Directly above him, Ra'goth the hunter watched his prey move out of the protection of the buildings. This one was much harder to kill than most of his targets and had proven quite capable of minimizing the Sa'dren demon's chances at a clean kill. Even the lucky soldier from the day before had not proven as interesting as this one… Silently calculating the distance, Ra'goth leapt from the top of the building and curled into a ball as he plummeted towards the yellow haired man below. While he hated getting close to his kills, he doubted he could do enough damage from a distance to bring down his target before another team arrived.


	18. Chapter 18

Frank Castle made his way towards his apartment as he made sure his trench coat covered his left side, one of the punks had gotten lucky with a twelve gauge and peppered his left side with duck shot, thankfully the underpowered round hadn't punched in too far, but it was going to be a stone cold bitch to dig the shot out tonight.

Glancing around at the rapidly darkening streets, Castle took note of everyone in sight, a couple of kids playing basketball, Miss Jenkins taking up the laundry, a taxicab on the corner with the driver enjoying dinner and a bald man in a wheelchair sitting patiently under a nearby tree with a cute redhead.

After a moment Frank Castle decided to bite the bullet and headed for the tree, the birdshot could wait.

As he neared the paraplegic Frank settled into a parade rest and waited.

"Frank, it has been too long," Charles Xavier said before turning his head slightly towards his companion. "This is my Protégé of sorts, her name is Jean Grey. Jean, this is Frank Castle." Charles introduced the two and silently calmed her as Jean tensed at the man's name.

Glancing at Jean for a moment, Frank nodded before turning back to one of the few people on the planet he not only trusted, but even liked to a certain extent. After all, there weren't many that would risk their lives in a VC infested Jungle just to pull out a wounded grunt. "Miss Grey," he acknowledged before returning his entire attention to the problem at hand. "Come on inside Francis, I'll put the kettle on." He acknowledged before turning back and leading his guests inside.

Fortunately Frank had gotten his safe house in a nice, upper-middle class neighborhood, lots of traffic coming and going without a lot of prying eyes and suspicion, unlike the slums he usually stayed at.

Ignoring his personal hatred for the death boxes in favor of his 'Guests,' Frank took the elevator to the fifth floor before leading the two to his apartment.

Entering the non-descript apartment, Jean Grey was stunned at how, domestic, the room was. Watching as the massive man moved about the room, divesting himself of a small arsenal of weapons that were quickly concealed in easy to reach locations, she realized from his movements that he was injured.

With a grunt, Frank pulled a rather well stocked medical kit out from a hidden section in the sofa and divested himself of his trench coat. He was rather shocked that the small redhead Xavier had introduced as 'Jean' was quickly by his side, working to repair the damage he had sustained in his latest battle.

Half an hour later, Frank was in the back room putting on some slightly less worn clothes as Jeanand the professor sat out front, he knew he would likely take the job. It was something he could do and it would keep the kids from ending up like his own.

Staring into the mirror Frank Castle considered exactly what his old friend was offering him, a job as educator and instructor in the mutant academy, mostly concerning dealing with Police and Military from around the world and how to avoid them at best and deal with them at worst, something he had considerable experience in, after all of his years as Punisher there were few departments or agencies that managed keep up with him.

He was also to teach the students how to handle the purely human threats that would arise, the 'Friends of Humanity' and similar scum, groups that were on his 'List' he was to teach them how to fight humans if need be, and if he was reading between the lines correctly he was also there to teach some of the hotheads exactly how dangerous a purely human opponent could be.

Looking at the old man in the mirror, Frank Castle came to a decision.

Back in the living room Jean Grey looked at her mentor before she asked one of the many questions she had about the current situation. "Professor, why does he call you Francis?"

Chuckling at the oddity of the question, Charles smiled at his protégé. "While it is a convoluted story in itself, suffice to say that being called Charlie or any derivative of it was not recommended during my time in Vietnam, so many took to calling me by my middle name.

The two mutants were interrupted by the return of the Punisher, the massive man finally nodded in acceptance.

Some days you wake up swinging… and some days you wake up in a feral rage with a rather large portion of a plane on top of you. This was the day Xander was having. Ripping through the metal that currently cocooned him, he shredded anything in his way to freedom, snarling and snapping at everything that kept him down.

Finally clearing the wreckage, Xander took a moment to calm himself before taking stock of the situation. The plane was a burning wreck around him, sending a plume of black smoke high into the air, his clothes were shredded and he looked like a half feral, post-apocalyptic holocaust all he would not blame the first responders one bit of they opted to shoot first and ask questions later. That would be his second reaction to meeting someone that looked like he did now, to be honest. His first one would be to run and hide behind the nearest Slayer.

Checking the angle of the sun, he finally spotted his target and set out for the horizon. If his calculations were correct he should make it to Sunnydale in as little as a day. If they weren't, he would probably hit Mexico and have to turn back.

Hopefully he would come to a road before then.

Tick-Tock flew over the United States in the direction of his target. His mistress had given him a very simple order and he had every intention of completing it, find the Mutant designated 'Taz' and return him to the mansion by any means necessary.

Its databanks had searched the mansion's computers before he left and had fortunately managed to ascertain the name and most likely location of his target. One 'Alexander Lavelle Harris' was suspected to be en route to Sunnydale California with the expected mission to be the extermination of one 'Sheila Rosenberg' for her part in his experimentation.

Scanning the area below him, Tick-Tock considered that. He had originally been created to capture, detain and exterminate all mutants, a mission that had been derailed by the mutant organization known as the X-Men.

Alone of all his production line, he had been kept by the X-men, possibly as a souvenir, possibly as a reminder. Eventually he had been forgotten deep in the basement levels of the mansion.

His musings were broken when his scans passed over a lone figure heading west. While his mission was the return of 'Taz,' past experience suggested that the one known as 'Wolverine' had a high likelihood of interfering.

Readjusting the mission parameters, Tick-Tock made a decision and cut adjustments to its shape brought the Kilo Class Sentinel in on an intercept trajectory as it downloaded all data available on one James Howlet Logan, AKA Wolverine.

The Sentinel had full surprise when itlanded, its left foot landing just behind the motorcycle as its right swept around and took both vehicle and rider down in one blow, sending the mutant skidding off into the cornfields that filled a large portion of the state. Firing its boot thrusters Tick-tock made sure to re-melt the asphalt and smooth it over to reduce damage to the infrastructure before turning back towards his target, with a feral scream of Rage the Wolverine leapt out of the corn field and charged him.

His original combat subroutines had been lost long ago when Cyclops had severed his head from his body leaving the massive robot to download what it could from other systems and extrapolate the rest from media sources.

Crouching low the massive sentinel threw out its left hand in a universal 'Peace' sign before launching a heavy haymaker with itsright that blindsided the shocked mutant and sent him skidding off back into the corn field, extrapolating where he was most likely to Land Tick-Tock launched himself into the air.

Snarling as he spit dirt out of his Mouth Logan forced himself up to his hands and knees and tried to shake the impact off, he was unable to before the massive boots of his opponent landed on him, crushing back into the soft farm soil once more, this was repeated twice more as the sentinel stomped on him like a bug before leaping off and disappearing into the corn. Dragging himself free from the earth Logan lashed out at everything around him as he sought his foe, taking a moment to look around Logan was both amazed and horrified at how effective this robot was, a rustling sound from behind him made him spin just as a massive metal fist landed a hammer blow on him from where the Sentinel was laying in the cornfield to hide.

Firing his thrusters Tick-Tock blasted over the once more planted mutant and rocketed off into the distance, his calculations predicted that his attacks had not yet beaten the feral mutant. But he had plans for that, banking to the left just over the twelve foot tall plants Tick-Tocks GPS system returned him to the mutant location with extreme precision, at three seconds out he cut his thrusters and reoriented himself, landing on one leg again Tick-Tock imitated one of the NFL's kickers catching the much smaller mutant square and launching him deeper into the corn fields.

As the mutant flew away Tick-Tock took note of the deep scratches on its leg armor before turning away and once more launching itself into the air, his calculations predicted that he had delayed the mutant sufficiently to finish his mission objective, the massive robot stopped just long enough to stomp the front of the motorcycle into scrap before taking off again.

As soon as he impacted Logan dove into the high Corn growth and spent several seconds rushing blindly through the rows before dropping to the ground and listening intently for his attacker, in all his years fighting the metal monstrosities he had never crossed one as hard to predict as this one, it's attacks had been like nothing he had faced before and the effectiveness of the attacks were terrifying.

After several minutes without a follow up attack Logan carefully made his way back to the road.

His reaction to finding his motorcycle was less than pleasant.

The soon to beColonel Bradley Stone sat in the back of the transport and tried not to panic, in a matter of hours he had gone from one of the most powerful men in the country, if not the world, to the first of many that were being drug under the wheels of this particular cluster fuck, his demotion was awaiting him in Norfolk along with a General Court Marshal.

Looking around the empty aircraft, Bradley wondered where he had gone wrong. He knew he was not a good man, but at one time he had been able to justify it by being a good soldier. He had dedicated his life to making sure the men and women under his command had gotten what they needed, by hook or by crook.

Blinking at that the career soldier tried to remember the last time any of his effort had gone into helping the soldiers, or at the very least the country he had sworn to protect, after a few moments he came to the realization that it had been far, far too long.

Taking a long look at his most recent actions, Stone was shocked at what he had done, and been willing to do.

It wasn't like he had started off trying to screw over a good soldier and let a monster walk free, he had started down this path with the expectation of helping the soldiers that depended on him to get the resources they desperately needed without the hoops they were currently required to jump through.

After a few more moments of self-reflection Stone picked up a notepad and quickly began jotting down information, if he was going down he would be damned if he went without at least one good deed to his name.

No way in hell would Striker succeed.

Wade Wilson ambled down the street happily, he had dealt with Weston, the local authority figure out been suitably advised of his displeasure and the cashier of the local stop and rob had been saved from boredom by a sword fight right in the middle of her store, and it wasn't even noon yet.

All in all Wade considered it a good day had by all, now if only he could figure out why his back itched his day would be great.

Continuing down the street wade scratched at the half dozen poison darts sticking out of his back before making a decision and teleporting back to his apartment.

He needed just the right door knob and then he would take care of the Rosenbuam person, or what it Buamrosen, Buamstead? Burnstead? Burnstien… continuing down the street he tried to latch onto a name that sounded like the right person to kill.

The Black Widow looked over the gathered data with a critical eye, while Finn had been lax and made several mistakes he had managed to dig up a considerable amount in the short time since he landed, the fact that he had survived an encounter with the Order was also of note in her professional consideration. "What is the potential threat level?" she asked looking up at the young agent as he stood before her.

"Just from the rumors possible Omega Level Event, from what I could actually dig up before the attack," the young agent trailed off before shrugging "Galactus threat level or better." He explained and waited for the explosion.

A Galactus level threat was something nobody joked about, Agents that made claims of that level and were proven to exaggerate were quickly transferred to maximum security prisons in countries not weighed down by excessive human rights laws.

For a moment Natasha considered calling SHIELD for support before squashing that thought down, given her current situation it was most likely that words like 'Extreme Prejudice' and 'Premeditated' would be bandied about rather quickly and she would be lucky to find herself reassigned back to Siberia.

Finally coming to a decision Natasha started issuing orders to the gathered Shield agents, in a matter of minutes the professional soldiers were deploying on their new mission assignments.

And for the time being Sheila Rosenberg got a reprieve.

"Watcher!" The yell echoed through the Library just before the screaming evacuation alarm tore through the already panicked school, storming in Faith was surprised when a massive bag of assorted books and weapons was slid out of the weapons cage, a scowling Brit storming out after it.

"Take 'That' out the back and get it to my apartment," Giles ordered as he shoved a handful of files into a leather messenger bag before turning back to the two girls "Snyder has opened fire in a school, there is no way this can be covered up and the police and investigators will be here soon, we do NOT want any unnecessary questions asked so Faith I need you to keep conceal yourself at my apartment as well, the flat across from mine is moving out and I will see about getting you two settled in as soon as I am finished here." Giles explained before scanning the room one last time for anything that would lead to uncomfortable questions and nodding. "I regret that you and Willow will have to continue to room together but my funding is limited at the moment and I can only afford one extra place on my current income."

Handing the young Slayer his Key Giles Moved to escort Willow from the building and set about getting the faculty and students organized and to safety.

Storming through his house Snyder took a moment to calm himself before tapping a sequence into floor vault and pulling the massive blast door up and away, inside the blue uniform was tightly wrapped and sealed in the event his onetime organization ever managed to overthrow the abomination that MODOK had created, shifting the uniform aside Rufus withdrew a half dozen small spheres and began to set up his defense,

Electra may very well be the best assassin the world had ever created but he would be damned before he allowed her to just walk into his home without a fight, he was A.I.M. by god and if he was destined to die here today then he would be sure that the world knew of his genius.

Pulling out his pride and joy Snyder gazed into the soft glow of the liquid Cosmic Cube, while nowhere near as powerful as the original the liquid tesseract, it should be enough to make the Assassin work for her blood money.

Activating the liquid energy Rufus moved towards his secured work room and began putting his plans together; behind him the spheres broke up into three separate spider like assassin bots each and began to hide themselves around the residence, while not the most intelligent combat bots ever built they were vicious little bastards and brutally effective at killing things.

Elektra carefully pried the heat exchange vent off the back of the roof and after a short amount of wiggling managed to shimmy into the building, balancing on the beams holding up the house she took note of the rather limited insulation that the house had on the inside as compared to the rather hefty sound buffering that completely covered the exterior walls before turning on a near invisible red light to make sure of her path, a slight glint drew her attention to her feet.

Bending down the hands most perfect student blinked at the filament line that was crisscrossing the attic along with a half dozen others, each attached to a rather nasty looking anti-personnel mine seeded around the upper section of the house as well as what appeared to be older model Bouncing Betty's hidden in the insulation with pressure switches sitting on the support beams at random locations, taking a moment to triple check everything around her before she moved Elektra had to marvel at the combination of old and new tech that had been seamlessly woven into an anti-intruder system that would put even her skills to work.

At the very least it explained the rather extensive anti-pest systems the yard and curtilage of the house sported; it wouldn't do for a mouse to set off any of these after all.

The homeowners association would likely complain.

Snyder looked up as a computer started to beep at him before pulling up the issue that it had spotted and double checking, a section of the attic had gotten a temperature spike that it couldn't explain. Any other day and he would have cleared the alert and moved on with his life, but his current position was not something that would allow him to be lax in something like this, ordering three of his eighteen assassin bots to check and putting the others on alert before picking up the harness he had fashioned for his stolen tesseract energy system he began to put it all togather.

While nowhere near as elegent as the Iron-mans design it should offer him several advantages when he finally faced his killer, snapping the last part in place he checked the assassin bots he had sent to investigate the heat spike and was only mildly surprised when they failed to report, sending the updated report to the rest Snyder turned the screen off and moved to the armored area of his lab and tried to calm himself.

He was under no delusion that his little robots would challenge Electra, against a normal human they had proven effective only if they were not expected or the threats had no experience in handling such things.

Against a threat of Electra's caliber they would be lucky to even challenge her, of course they could always get lucky, but Snyder was not one for luck. He believed in plans and designs, contingencies and redundancy, in stacking the deck in his favor at all chances.

It had served him well in A.I.M. and later on when dealing with the likes of Wolfram and Hart and Mayor Wilkens, but against Electra.

Taking a deep breath as the lights flickered out for a second before the Chemical backups kicked in reveling the open blast door that he had been sealed moments before.

Throwing a hand up Snyder forced his will into the energy flow and was pleasantly surprised when a half dozen throwing blades froze in mid-air just inches from his more important anatomical parts, dropping to a knee he crouched under the flying kick of Electra and letting the blades drop the floor.

Rolling to his right he managed to avoid her follow up knife strike before throwing a pulse of energy in her direction, not feeling the energy impact anything Snyder changed tactics, shifting his own gravity was merely another effort of will and he found himself 'Fall' to the ceiling as Electra moved into range to attack again.

Standing up the A.I.M. agent managed to deflect of block several quick sword strikes before he clenched his fist tightly and bathed the hallway in a flash of blinding blue light, shifting his gravity again Snyder stepped down onto the wall and with a flick of his wrist launched the blades and assembled pokey objects towards the momentarily blinded assassin, he was slightly amazed as the red clad killer swayed around the attack effortlessly before charging him again.

Jumping backwards Snyder let his gravity shift the end of the hall down to pull him away from his killer before resettling in his current position and sending another pulse of energy towards Electra pushing her back and opening up some space between them.

Sneering at his opponent Rufus Snyder knew he was losing, while the tesseract was offering him many advantages he needed focus to use them in any manner more complicated than a hammer. Focus that Electra seemed determined to keep him from obtaining.

Another issue of concern was the rather nasty burning sensation in his arms from where he had channeled the energy, a burning that he could tell from the scent lingering in the air was not the common lactic acid sensation he could get from simply working out.

If he had to guess Snyder would place money on the fact that his weapon was just as fatal to his overall health as Electra was, another possible plan of the red assassin, simply wait until he killed himself.

Snarling in rage Snyder went on the attack, if he was going to die he was bringing this bitch down with him.

Staring down at the burnt out husk, Electra took a moment to catch her breath as she wiped the blood from her split lip and tried to ignore the cracked ribs she now sported, Snyder had been something of a Surprise, in the past decade she had fought and studied fights of Hydra and all it's affiliates, the average 'tough' A.I.M. fight lasted on average four seconds and universally ended with the crushing defeat of the A.I.M. member that was foolish enough to fight.

Snyder on the other hand, harkened back to the far more dangerous days when the Advanced Idea Mechanics were still considered a threat, before M.O.D.O.K. and the fall of the Scientist Supreme, before SHIELD crushed the backbone of the organization.

Straitening up Electra made sure to set several Incendiary bombs around the house before she left. No reason to let any of the equipment or materials fall into the wrong hands.

Moving towards one of the safe houses she had set up before coming to the small town, Electra made a mental note to patch herself up before she moved in on her real target.

Sabertooth snarled as he slashed at the porcupine man that had attacked him. HHis opponent dodged back when Sabertooth launched himself into a tackle of the spined threat, growling as hundreds of spines embedded themselves into his arms when he brought his opponent down.

Shaking his head after he finally landed atop the Spine-pig, Victor realized that the spines had some sort of paralytic poison on them as his regeneration was working to keep him up and fighting despite the poison.

Jerking his arm back, the mutant punched his claws into the belly of the porcupine man before curling his hand into a fist and ripping everything he could get ahold of out of his opponent, a quick repetition of his attack and he had managed to gut his opponent quiet effectively.

Rolling over, Victor kicked his opponent off of him before climbing to his feet. Taking a moment to rip the spines out of his flesh, Creed shook off the poison before turning back to finish off the assassin.

He was more than a little surprised when the shorter man cannonballed into his midsection dragging him to the ground and began to rain blows down on him, impaling him with spines.

Struggling for a second Victor finally managed to buck the smaller man off of him and rolled to his feet, swiping as many of the prickly spines off as he could while he kept an eye on the threat. The porcupine man held his stomach carefully, but despite the obvious soreness, Victor could tell the injury was mostly healed already.

Cursing the existence of extra regenerators, Victor Creed prepared himself for a truly bloody fight.

(A/N) Thanks for waiting, I hope you all enjoyed it… this had more fighting than I have EVER put into a single chapter… and I really do not like writing fights.


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